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Artist: John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925)
American painter and sculptor. Resided primarily in England. Expatriate known for Realist portraits that paraphrased the masters in a contemporary fashion. Referenced Velazquez, Van Dyck, and Gainsborough. Regularly exhibited full-length portraits of women at the Paris Salon alongside the British Royal Academy, early 1880s. Portraits reveal the individuality and personality of the sitters. Befriended Monet and utilized impressionistic techniques in his portraits. Portraits earned him moniker “the Van Dycke of our times,” but his works engendered critical responses from contemporaries and was later dismissed as an anachronism, out of step with art of post-WWI. Gave up painting portraits and focused on landscapes alongside sculpting in his later years.