The Gilded Age in American Art

Evaluation | Curriculum Connections | Resources | Tours 1876 - 1917

John Singer Sargent Biography

1856 - Born in Florence to expatriate American parents. Spends most of childhood touring Europe, mainly in Italy, France, Switzerland and Germany
1868 - Receives his first formal art instruction in Rome
1870-73 - Sporadically attends the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence
1874-78 - Works as an assistant and student in the Paris studio of portraitist Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran. Attends drawing classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
1876 - Visits America
1877 - Exhibits first portrait at the Paris Salon
1879 - Travels to Spain and Morocco. Copies paintings by Velasquez at the Prado
1880 - Travels to Belgium and Holland. Copies works by Frans Hals
1881 - Meets James McNeill Whistler in Venice
1882-84 - Lives in Paris and exhibits the portrait of Madame Gautreau (or Madame X) at the 1884 Paris Salon. His portrait of the bare-shouldered, busty 23-year-old American woman scandalizes the Paris establishment. Sargent leaves Paris believing his career as a portrait painter in Paris is over.
1885 - Settles in London following the scandalous reception of Madame Gautreau. After a few years, he becomes the most sought-after and admired portrait painter in Great Britain and the United States.
1886 - Exhibits with the New English Art Club, of which he is a founding member
1887 - Visits and works with Claude Monet at Giverny, France, and makes his first professional trip to America
1888 - Holds a one-man exhibition at the St. Botolph Club, Boston, Massachusetts
1891 - Begins murals for the Boston Public Library
1890s - International reputation as a portraitist reaches its peak. Paints many of the distinguished personalities of his day, including novelists Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James, and Lady Randolph Churchill. Many of his clients are Americans, such as art patron Isabella Stewart Gardner, Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, and oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller.
1897 - Elected as a member of the National Academy of Design in New York, the Royal Academy of Art in London, and the Legion of Honor in France
1905-6 - Travels widely throughout Europe
1906 - Abandons portraiture and works primarily in watercolor
1910 - Devotes himself to landscapes and the murals at Boston
1924 - Retrospective exhibition held at the Grand Central Art Galleries, New York
1925 - Dies in London. Memorial exhibition of his work held in Boston
1926 - Memorial exhibitions held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Royal Academy and Tate Gallery in London