National Portrait Gallery February 28, 2020 - May 31, 2020
Sir William Blake Richmond / John Singer Sargent / c. 1910, Charcoal on paper / Lent by the National Portrait Gallery, London
John
Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was one of the greatest portrait artists of his
time. While he is best known for his powerful paintings, he largely ceased
painting portraits in 1907 and turned instead to charcoal drawings to satisfy
portrait commissions. These drawn portraits represent a substantial, yet often
overlooked, part of his practice, and they demonstrate the same sense of immediacy,
psychological sensitivity, and mastery of chiaroscuro that animate Sargent’s
sitters on canvas.
John Singer Sargent,
Sybil Sassoon, later
Marchioness of Chomondeley
, 1912, charcoal
Private Collection
John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal is a long overdue
celebration of Sargent’s achievements as a portrait draftsman. Important
international loans, from both public and private collections, showcase
Sargent’s sitters, many of them famous for their roles in politics, society,
and the arts. The exhibition also explores the friendships and the networks of
patronage that underpinned Sargent’s practice as a portrait draftsman in
Edwardian Britain and Progressive Era America.
John Singer Sargent: Portraits in
Charcoal is organized by the Morgan Library & Museum, New York and the
Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
At the height of his success as a portraitist, John Singer Sargent
(1856–1925) astonished the transatlantic art world by suddenly
abandoning oil painting in 1907. For the rest of his life, he explored
likeness and identity through the medium of charcoal, producing several
hundred portraits of individuals recognized for their accomplishments in
fields such as art, music, literature and theater. “John Singer
Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal” will be the first exhibition of
Sargent’s portrait drawings in over fifty years. This once-in-a-lifetime
assemblage of master drawings—many of them from private collections and
rarely exhibited—features compelling depictions of an international
network of trailblazing men and women who helped define
twentieth-century Anglo-American culture.
