12.01.1856 – 15.04.1925

John Singer Sargent was born into the family of “wandering Americans” – the Sargent family spent the winter months in Italy, and in summer moved to one of the resort cities of France, Switzerland or Germany.

John Sargent dreamed of becoming an artist from childhood, and when he was 18, his parents allowed his son to settle in Paris, where he began to take lessons from Charles Emile Durand, a popular portraitist at that time. It is in this genre that glory awaits John Sargent himself.

Not having finished his studies, Sargent begins to exhibit his works at the Salon, the largest annual exhibition in Paris. Paris in the second half of the XIX century was recognized as the artistic capital of the world, and the success of the painter in the Salon brought worldwide fame, and, of course, many orders. It was such a happy creative destiny that developed in John Sargent. Despite the huge number of exhibitions and orders, the habit of moving from place to place, inherited from parents, did not allow the artist to settle. In 1879, he traveled to Spain and North Africa, and in 1880 visited the Netherlands.

Sargent’s success was unexpectedly overshadowed by the scandal that broke out in 1884. The reason was the painting “Madame X”, exhibited by him in the Salon. This portrait depicts the wife of the influential banker Virginia Gottro. This work can hardly seem indecent to today’s viewer, but at the end of the XIX century, in the era of Puritan morality, both the open outfit of the model and its position seemed extremely challenging to the public. Frustrated with the scandal, Sargent went to London, where he decided to settle permanently.

A great recognition the artist enjoyed in the United States, where he visited in 1887-88. During his visit to Boston, his personal exhibition was a great success. Later Sargent achieved recognition in England – in 1894 he was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts.

In 1890, he accepted an order for the design of the building of the new Public Library in Boston. The walls of the library Sargent decorated with a series of frescoes, written on historical and religious subjects. The frescoes were finished only in 1916 and proved so successful that Sargent immediately received a new order – from 1916 to 1925 he worked on frescos at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

April 15, 1925 Sargent died in a dream of a heart attack in his London home. The artist turned 69 years old. His ashes were buried at Brockwood Cemetery in Woking, Surrey.