Overview

An ideal introduction to the work of John Singer Sargent: The Masterworks features 100 of the American artist's most beloved paintings. Drawn from all aspects of his diverse oeuvre – portraits, landscapes, mural commissions – in oil and watercolour, the selection reflects a holistic approach to Sargent's work to consider how different efforts across genres and media informed each other. This lush general survey draws on both private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art's infamous Madame X. New scholarship provides both an essential overview and a more subtle understanding of the American painter. Technically brilliant as a portraitist, Sargent remained indebted to both the old masters he studied and his modern contemporaries. His eclectic and international circle influenced his art and encouraged him to push the boundaries of genre, most strikingly in Sargent's friendship with Monet and consequent exposure to Impressionism. Sargent's cosmopolitan upbringing and education enabled a roving mind and made him perfectly suited to capture the upwardly mobile bourgeoisie and aristocrats of his era. His sensual portraits capture his sitters with startling vibrancy, as though they have just stepped away from the viewer's world. Given his tremendous success it is all the more surprising that Sargent turned to plein air painting after 1900, though as scholar Stephanie L. Herdich reveals, it is here that the painter unveils his personality, in series containing his most brilliant and personal images. Sargent was considered one of the greatest portraitists and watercolorists of his era and remains a vital voice today.

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"Stephanie L. Herdrich is Assistant Research Curator of American Painting and Sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum. Her work focuses on late 19th century American paintings and drawings. She was co-curator of the Met's presentation of Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends (2015) and Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River (2015). In addition to contributing to the exhibitions and publications Childe Hassam: American Impressionist (2004) and Thomas Hart Benton's America Today Mural Rediscovered (2014), she has published several essays on the work of John Singer Sargent, and is co-author of American Drawings and Watercolors in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: John Singer Sargent (2000). She attended Washington University in St. Louis and received a Curatorial Studies certificate and a PhD and from The Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Her dissertation was ""John Singer Sargent: A 'Modern Old Master' and the Italian Renaissance."""

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