John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was the most successful portrait painter of his era, as well as a gifted landscape painter and watercolorist. Sargent was born in Florence, Italy to American parents.
Sargent studied in Italy and Germany, and then in Paris under Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran.
Sargent studied with Carolus-Duran, whose influence would be pivotal, from 1874-1878. Carolus-Duran's atelier was progressive, dispensing with the traditional academic approach which required careful drawing and underpainting, in favor of the alla prima method of working directly on the canvas with a loaded brush, derived from Diego Velázquez. It was an approach which relied on the proper placement of tones of paint.
-small.jpg "Mrs. Waldorf Astor (Nancy Langhorne) - John Singer Sargent")
-small.jpg "Madame Gautreau (unfinished) - John Singer Sargent")
-small.jpg "Madame X (or Madame Pierre Gautreau) - John Singer Sargent")
-small.jpg "Mrs. Hamilton McKown Twombly (Florence Adele Vanderbilt) - John Singer Sargent")
-small.jpg "Mrs. Huth Jackson (Clara Annabel Caroline Grant Duff) - John Singer Sargent")
-small.jpg "Group with Parasols (or A Siesta) - John Singer Sargent")
-small.jpg "Nonchaloir (or Repose) - John Singer Sargent")
