An affordably priced companion to the exhibition catalog Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends. An ideal introduction to the work of this popular American artist, John Singer Sargent: Painting Friends features a selection of forty of the artist’s portraits of his close circle, including artists, writers, actors, and musicians.
John Singer Sargent's unconventional approach to watercolor defied early 20th-century norms of meticulous landscapes. His bold strokes and loosely defined forms surprised critics, with one reviewer likening him to "an eagle in a dove-cote" and another calling his work "swagger" watercolors. For Sargent, these pieces represented a liberated artistic vision, where personal connections and themes intertwined, often depicting friends or cherished locations. During his lifetime, he held only two major watercolor exhibitions in the U.S. The first in 1909 saw all works acquired by the Brooklyn Museum of Art, while the 1912 exhibition's contents were purchased by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The collection reunites nearly 100 works for the first time, organized by themes like sunlight on stone and figures on grass. Accompanied by biographical and technical essays, and featuring 175 color reproductions, this publication showcases the breadth of Sargent's achievements in watercolor, offering both visual delight and a deeper understanding of this remarkable artist. Sargent, born in Italy to American parents and trained in Paris, was a prominent figure of the Gilded Age, known for his striking portraits as well as his vibrant landscapes and watercolors inspired by his travels.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston possesses one of the world's finest collections of nineteenth-century French and American art. This colourful book, the catalogue of an exhibition at the Royal Academy, illustrates many of its highlights. All the high points of Boston's nineteenth-century collections are revealed here.