John Singer Sargent

Madame X — the supreme portraitist of the Gilded Age

The most brilliant society portraitist of his era and one of the great virtuosos of the brush in the history of painting. Born in Florence to American parents and trained in Paris, Sargent commanded a fluid, dazzling touch that could conjure silk, flesh, and personality in a few decisive strokes. His scandalous Madame X nearly ended his Paris career; he rebuilt it in London and America as the painter every aristocrat and tycoon wished to sit for, before turning late in life to luminous watercolors and monumental murals.

Key works

• Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau)1884— The portrait that scandalized Paris
  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit1882— Four girls in a shadowed hall — a haunting group portrait
  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose1886— Children with lanterns at dusk — pure painted twilight
  Tate Britain, London

Connections

External