By Erica E. Hirshler, Teresa A. Carbone. Text by Richard Ormond, Annette Manick.
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.
Featured image is reproduced from John Singer Sargent: Watercolors.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The New York Times
Judith Dobrzynski
Experimenting with unusual compositions and new techniques, he reinvented himself aesthetically... far from stagnating Sargent was innovating in his watercolors.
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This Friday, April 5, the Brooklyn Museum opens John Singer Sargent Watercolors, reuniting for the first time the only two major bodies of watercolors shown in the United States during the artist's lifetime, which were acquired by the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in the early twentieth century. Many of the 93 works on view, including "Bedoins" (1905-06, from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum), featured here, have not been exhibited in decades. The show will be on view in Brooklyn through July; afterwards, it travels to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and concludes at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 2014. Featured image is reproduced from the essential exhibition catalog, John Singer Sargent: Watercolors. continue to blog
"Sargent continued to find in the watercolor medium the means to record the evanescence of personality and vibrations of emotions that had little place in his late commissioned portraits. Both qualities are poignantly apparent in a late watercolor of Alice Runnels James... His gently, carefully modeled description of the features and suggestion of the pallid, listless figure point to the physical ills and neurasthenia to which this sometimes vivacious young woman was prone. The lower body is so thinly painted as to be dematerialized—a fainter volume than the robust pillows—clearly revealing the lines of Sargent's drawing. In an essay on artistic personality, Sargent's longtime friend Vernon Lee asserted that a great artist's work must be 'at once the portrait of those for whom he paints, and the portrait of their ideals, that is, their intenser selves.' It is perhaps in his watercolor portraits, which Sargent painted largely for himself, that we might look for further traces of his 'intenser' self." – Teresa A. Carbone, John Singer Sargent: Watercolors continue to blog
This week, the Brooklyn Museum opened John Singer Sargent Watercolors, reuniting for the first time the only two major bodies of watercolors shown in the United States during the artist's lifetime, which were acquired by the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in the early twentieth century. Many of the 93 works on view had not been exhibited in decades. The exhibition is on view in Brooklyn through July; afterwards, it travels to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and concludes at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 2014. Featured image, “Spanish Soldiers” (circa 1903, from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum), is reproduced from the essential exhibition catalog, John Singer Sargent: Watercolors. continue to blog
"Mountain Fire" (circa 1906-7) is reproduced from MFA Boston and Brooklyn Museum's breathtaking survey of John Singer Sargent's watercolors, back in stock at last. "Yes, they are brilliant evocations of the natural world, scintillating studies of light and shadow, but they are not 'obvious,'" Sargent scholar and grand-nephew Richard Ormond writes in his introduction. "Rather, they are constructs that do not obey the rules of conventional composition. The odd angles and perspectives, the close-ups and croppings, the reductions and abstractions, the obsession with surface texture and the marks of the brush, all demonstrate a modern aesthetic as Sargent pushed out the boundaries of his art. His watercolors are not pretty pictures or holiday snaps. They are bold, original, and challenging works of art." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 12 x 10 in. / 252 pgs / 175 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $60.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $79 GBP £40.00 ISBN: 9780878467914 PUBLISHER: MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Brooklyn Museum AVAILABLE: 4/30/2013 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Brooklyn Museum. By Erica E. Hirshler, Teresa A. Carbone. Text by Richard Ormond, Annette Manick.
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.
