Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends, National Portrait Gallery ★★★★★

Below is our preview, which explains the background of the show. Click here to read our John Singer Sargent, National Portrait Gallery review.

National Portrait Gallery London Director Sandy Nairne takes his final bow with one last major project: an exhibition of portraits by the provocative 19^th century American artist John Singer Sargent. This show is high on our list of the top 10 exhibitions in London 2015. 

Who was John Singer Sargent: biography?

Born in Florence to American parents who never quite found their way back to the New World, Sargent spent his early life in Europe. After training in Paris he moved to London where he operated in glittering social circles, rubbing shoulders with other high-profile artists, musicians and writers.

John Singer Sargent artwork 

Sargent is considered to have been the most important portrait painter of his generation, with particularly fascinating non-commissioned paintings that depict his close friends including sculptor Auguste Rodin, artist Claude Monet and writer Henry James. Being able to paint his contemporaries without financial concern meant that Sargent could revel in experimentation, invoking a John Singer Sargent technique of portraiture that was far more intimate than traditional convention.

What can we expect at the National Portrait Gallery John Singer Sargent exhibition 2015?

Look out at this John Singer Sargent London art show for the infamous portrait of Madame X (socialite Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau) in a scandalously revealing dress that caused the artist to flee from Paris to London. His love of the stage is revealed in his portraits of the Spanish dancer La Carmencita and the Shakespearian actor Edwin Booth (perhaps better known as brother of the President Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth). You’ll also be delighted by Sargent’s pair of paintings of Treasure Island writer, Robert Louis Stevenson.

Of all the National Portrait Gallery London exhibitions 2015, the John Singer Sargent National portrait Gallery show re-establishes Sargent’s reputation as a giant in portraiture. These, “extraordinary and rare loans are coming together for the first time to demonstrate Sargent’s talent in a new way”, promises Nairne. Featuring over seventy works from collections on both sides of the Atlantic, Nairne really does go out with a bang.