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PUBLISHER
MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 8 x 11.5 in. / 248 pgs / 150 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2023 p. 36   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780878468942 TRADE
List Price: $65.00 CAD $94.00 GBP £65.00

AVAILABILITY
In stock

TERRITORY
NA LA EUR ASIA AU/NZ AFR ME

EXHIBITION SCHEDULE

Boston, MA
Museum of Fine Arts, 10/08/23–01/15/24

London, UK
Tate Britain, 02/21/24–07/07/24

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MFA PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON

Fashioned by Sargent

Edited with text by Erica E. Hirshler, Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, James Finch, Pamela A. Parmal. Text by Paul Fisher, Frances Fowle, Dominic Green, Rebecca Hellen, Stephanie L. Herdrich, Elaine Kilmurray, Richard Ormond, Elizabeth Prettejohn, Anna Reynolds, Andrew Stephenson.

Fashioned by Sargent

A lavish exploration of Sargent’s relationship to fashion, featuring exquisite costumes from the Gilded Age

"The coat is the picture," John Singer Sargent explained to his fellow artist Graham Robertson in the summer of 1894, tugging a heavy garment ever more tightly around his sitter’s slender figure. More attentive to what he hoped to accomplish as a painter than he was to the dictates of contemporary fashion, Sargent often chose what his sitters would wear. Even when they came to him dressed in the latest mode, he frequently ignored or simplified the details, concentrating on texture, drape and the way fabrics responded to light. Exploiting dress as an integral ingredient of his own artistry, Sargent used clothes to proclaim his own aesthetic agenda while simultaneously establishing his sitters’ social position, profession, gender identity and nationality.
Fashioned by Sargent explores the complicated relationship of painting and dress through lavish reproductions of Sargent’s works alongside exquisite costumes of the period—including garments actually worn by his sitters. Essays by leading scholars illuminate topics such as portraits and performance, gender expression and the New Woman, and the pull of history and the excitement of new ideas, offering readers new insights into masterworks by a beloved American 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.


PRAISE AND REVIEWS

WWD

Sara James Mnookin

Adjustments were subtle but often added to the complexity of the portraits, bucking convention or imbuing the sitters with deeper intrigue, intelligence, or emotion.

Vogue

Stephanie Sporn

Delves into sartorial signifiers of ancestral and national power, as well as Sargent’s subtle allusions to past masters including Rembrandt and Velázquez.

The New York Times: Arts

Lauren Messman

Working at a time when the placement of a single shoulder strap could create a scandal, John Singer Sargent was conscious about the way fashion factored into his portraits and, in the case of “Madame X,” how it reflected the personality and respectability of his high-society subjects.

The New York Times: Arts

Karen Rosenberg

Sargent, while swathing his striving subjects in luxurious-looking layers of satin, velvet, and organza, never failed to reveal their essential humanity.

Fashioned by Sargent

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FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/24/2023

Gilded Age glamour in 'Fashioned by Sargent'

Gilded Age glamour in 'Fashioned by Sargent'

Nonchaloir (Repose), 1911, is reproduced from new release, Fashioned by Sargent, published to accompany the critically-acclaimed exhibition on view now at MFA Boston. A sumptuous exploration of Sargent’s relationship to fashion—mixing paintings with exquisite costumes from the Gilded Age—this is a book for all lovers of portraiture, painting and historic fashion design. “What happens when you turn yourself over to the hands of an artist?” curators Erica E. Hirshler and James Finch ask. “Who decides what you wear when your portrait is crafted, and what message will it send when your image goes out into the world?… Sargent worked in a reputation-conscious, information-saturated economy of images in which an unflattering likeness or ill-chosen ensemble could signal social disaster. In other words, a time like the present. The outfits Sargent’s sitters (both men and women) wore revealed much, not necessarily their flesh but certainly their characters, sometimes in unexpected ways. Sargent and his sitters experienced their share of critical drubbings, and the painter’s productions were often dismissed as insufficiently decorous, or mere reflections of passing trends. Nearly a hundred years after his death, however, his art remains astonishing for its combination of immediacy and grandeur. Sargent didn’t paint fashion but, rather, made fashion a part of his painting.” continue to blog


FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/24/2023

Gilded Age glamour in 'Fashioned by Sargent'

Gilded Age glamour in 'Fashioned by Sargent'

Nonchaloir (Repose), 1911, is reproduced from new release, Fashioned by Sargent, published to accompany the critically-acclaimed exhibition on view now at MFA Boston. A sumptuous exploration of Sargent’s relationship to fashion—mixing paintings with exquisite costumes from the Gilded Age—this is a book for all lovers of portraiture, painting and historic fashion design. “What happens when you turn yourself over to the hands of an artist?” curators Erica E. Hirshler and James Finch ask. “Who decides what you wear when your portrait is crafted, and what message will it send when your image goes out into the world?… Sargent worked in a reputation-conscious, information-saturated economy of images in which an unflattering likeness or ill-chosen ensemble could signal social disaster. In other words, a time like the present. The outfits Sargent’s sitters (both men and women) wore revealed much, not necessarily their flesh but certainly their characters, sometimes in unexpected ways. Sargent and his sitters experienced their share of critical drubbings, and the painter’s productions were often dismissed as insufficiently decorous, or mere reflections of passing trends. Nearly a hundred years after his death, however, his art remains astonishing for its combination of immediacy and grandeur. Sargent didn’t paint fashion but, rather, made fashion a part of his painting.” continue to blog


JOHN SINGER SARGENT MONOGRAPHS + ARTIST'S BOOKS

Fashioned by Sargent

FASHIONED BY SARGENT

MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

ISBN: 9780878468942
USD $65.00
| CAD $94 UK £ 65

Pub Date: 10/10/2023
Active | In stock


Sargent's Daughters

SARGENT'S DAUGHTERS

MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

ISBN: 9780878468607
USD $17.95
| CAD $24.95 UK £ 13.5

Pub Date: 3/19/2019
Active | In stock


Sargent's Daughters

SARGENT'S DAUGHTERS

MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

ISBN: 9780878467426
USD $29.95
| CAD $39.95 UK £ 27

Pub Date: 10/31/2009
Active | Out of stock