| John Singer Sargent | ||
| Birth Date: January 12, 1856 |
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| Death Date: April 14, 1925 Artist Gallery |
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| John Singer Sargent was born of American parents in Italy, learned to paint like a Spaniard in France and lived in England for most of his life however his roots were New England. His grandfather, Winthrop Sargent IV, descended from one of the oldest colonial families. John’s father, Fitzwilliam Sargent, became a physician and in 1850 married Mary Newbold Singer. The couple left Philadelphia for Europe in late summer 1854, seeking a healthful climate and distraction after the death of their firstborn child. The Sargent’s’ stay in Europe was meant to be temporary, but by 1870 Mary had given birth to five more children of who three survived: John, born in Florence, Emily born in Rome and Violet born in Florence. Their residences would change to accommodate the health needs of the family and, increasingly, the education of their talented son.
While he was the quintessential cosmopolite, he was also very much an American. He painted many portraits of American sitters in Paris, London, and the United States, sold numerous works to American collectors; exhibited in American cities and encouraged American museum to acquire his works; devoted decades to creating murals for installation in Boston and nearby Cambridge and declined knighthood rather than renounce his citizenship.
John Singer Sargent had used watercolors since he was a boy and frequently employed the medium during his mature career. Eventually, in an effort to move away from being a portrait painter of the aristocracy, he created a voluminous number of watercolors, many of them done on vacation travels throughout Europe and the Middle East. Initially he did not intend to sell the watercolors, although in 1903, 1905 and 1908 he did begin showing his watercolors in increasing numbers. Portable watercolors were well suited to Sargent’s peripatetic summers and, as he traveled more often after 1900, his output of radiant works in the medium increased dramatically.
Sargent’s unfailing interest in color and light was well served by the transparency and spontaneity of watercolor. He established a solid reputation as a watercolorist. Sargent’s gift for fashioning objects as if by magic was enhanced by his unconventional compositions. He often cropped his images dramatically, providing only partial views or fragments; resisting the broad vistas, ignoring the sky and adopting close vantage points.
In April of 1925 after completing the murals for the Museum of Fine Arts, Sargent remarked to a friend: Now the American things are done, and so, I suppose, I may die when I like. Three days before he was to sail for Boston to oversee the installation he suffered a heart attack in his sleep and died.
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