The Grand Affair
John Singer Sargent in His World
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022.
Format: Book
Edition: First edition.
Description: viii, 479 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm
In The Grand Affair, the historian Paul Fisher offers a vivid life of the buttoned-up artist and his unbuttoned work. Sargent's nervy, edgy portraits exposed illicit or dark feelings in himself and his sitters--feelings that high society on both sides of the Atlantic found fascinating and off-putting. Fisher traces Singer's life from his wandering trans-European childhood to the salons of Paris, and the scandals and enthusiasms he caused, and on to London. There he mixed with eccentrics and aristocrats, and the likes of Henry James and Oscar Wilde, while at the same time forming a close relationship with a lightweight boxer who became his model, valet, and traveling partner. In later years, Sargent met up with his friend and patron Isabella Stewart Gardner around the world and devoted himself to a new model, the African American elevator operator and part-time contortionist Thomas McKeller, who would become the subject of some of Sargent's most daring and powerful work. Illuminating Sargent's restless itinerary, Fisher explores the enigmas of fin de siècle sexuality and art, fashioning a biography that grants the man and his paintings new and intense life. -- Provided by publisher.
Contents:
Prologue: the prince of the Glass Palace -- Mrs. Sargent's party -- The fig leaf -- Mountain men -- The school of Michelangelo -- "Rather too sinister a charm" -- The Rapins -- Rosina's spell -- Travels in the dark -- Flash gatherings -- In the key of bllue -- Diva trouble -- Baby Milbank -- The pact -- Nadir -- Broadway Bohemians -- The cavalier -- A king's existence -- The stage door -- Painted temples -- Sargent's gondolier -- Cosmopolitans -- The President's coar -- East of Jordan -- Detonations -- Empire's end -- The contortionist -- Miss Sargent's party.
ISBN:
9780374165970
Availability | |||
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Call Number | Location | Shelf Location | Status |
BIOGRAPHY Sargent, John Singer | Cooper (Forest Acres) | Biography | Held |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [385]-451) and index.