Richard Ormond

Many of the sitters in this collection were John Singer Sargent's close friends. They are posed informally, sometimes in the act of painting or singing, and it is evident from the bold way they confront us that they are personalities of a creative stamp. Brilliant as these pictures are as works of art and penetrating studies of character, they are also records of relationships, allegiances, influences and aspirations. This volume aims to explore these...

John Singer Sargent's work in watercolor was unorthodox. He overturned traditional contemporary compositional standards and avoided the obviously picturesque, developing an audacious and sophisticated technique, an expression of his personal modern aesthetic. He ignored the celebrated panoramas of Venice and the traditional description of landscape; instead his watercolors challenged the viewer with unconventional angles, confrontational poses and...

The last in a series of books devoted to the work of John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), this volume covers the figure and landscape works that Sargent produced between 1914 and 1925. The story begins with the artist painting with friends on vacation in Austria in the summer of 1914, unaware that war was about to be declared. The following year, he began working in London on his ideas for the murals at the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine...

Fashioned by Sargent explores the complicated relationship of painting and dress through reproductions of portraits and other works by Sargent, alongside costumes of the period - including garments actually worn by his sitters. Essays illuminate topics such as portraits and performance, gender expression, the New Woman, and the pull of history and the excitement of new ideas.