Nearly 100 watercolors by John Singer Sargent from two major museum
collections
John Singer Sargent's approach to watercolor was unconventional. Going
beyond turn-of-the-century standards for carefully delineated and
composed landscapes filled with transparent washes, his confidently
bold, dense strokes and loosely defined forms startled critics and
fellow practitioners alike. One reviewer of an exhibition in London
proclaimed him "an eagle in a dove-cote"; another called his work
"swagger" watercolors. For Sargent, however, the watercolors were not so
much about swagger as about a renewed and liberated approach to
painting. In watercolor, his vision became more personal and his works
more interconnected, as he considered the way one image--often of a
friend or favorite place--enhanced another. Sargent held only two major
watercolor exhibitions in the United States during his lifetime. The
contents of the first, in 1909, were purchased in their entirety by the
Brooklyn Museum of Art. The paintings exhibited in the other, in 1912,
were scooped up by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. John Singer Sargent
Watercolors reunites nearly 100 works from these collections for the
first time, arranging them by themes and subjects: sunlight on stone,
figures reclining on grass, patterns of light and shadow. Enhanced by
biographical and technical essays, and lavishly illustrated with 175
color reproductions, this publication introduces readers to the full
sweep of Sargent's accomplishments in this medium, in works that delight
the eye as well as challenge our understanding of this prodigiously
gifted artist.
The international art star of the Gilded Age, John Singer Sargent
(1856-1925) was born in Italy to American parents, trained in Paris and
worked on both sides of the Atlantic. Sargent is best known for his
dramatic and stylish portraits, but he was equally active as a
landscapist, muralist, and watercolor painter. His dynamic and boldly
conceived watercolors, created during travels to Tuscan gardens, Alpine
retreats, Venetian canals and Bedouin encampments, record unusual motifs
that caught his incisive eye.
