In this beautiful book, Trevor Fairbrother argues that viewing John Singer Sargent as a sensualist connects otherwise conflicting elements of his oeuvre and offers a new interpretation of his life and work. The book is lavishly illustrated with examples of the artist's oils, watercolors, and sketches, and it includes a little-known series of expressive charcoal drawings of male nudes, here published together in color for the first time.Published in association with the Seattle Art Museum

John Singer Sargent: The Sensualist

Arts & Photography

Trevor Fairbrother

Individual Artists

Yale University Press

Portraiture is a demanding art requiring the artist to capture a likeness and render it revealing some hint of the personality behind the image. A two-pronged task, it requires great technical skill and an intuitive eye. In both these respects, John Singer Sargent stands out as a portrait artist of major stature. Born in 1856 in Florence of American parents, Sargent showed artistic aptitude at an early age and was enrolled at the Academia delle Belle Arti in that city. Later he studied with Parisian artist Carolus Duran, acquiring the loose, painterly style for which he is renowned. International acclaim as a portrait artist came early in his life and followed him throughout his career. Sargent's portraits done in oil are well known; they appear in major museums throughout the world. A lesser-known but no less respected aspect of his oeuvre, his portrait drawings are the focus of this collection. Included here are early works in pencil and pastels, and later renderings in charcoal, a medium Sargent favored after 1910. They have been selected from both public and private collections by art historian Trevor J. Fairbrother and attest to Sargent's technical skill, versatility, and dexterity in three different mediums. In addition, these works reveal Sargent's ability to treat a diverse group of subjects; he handles the languorous beauties of the Edwardian age, members of the aristocracy, and the great literary and artistic figures of his day with equal virtuosity, capturing their characteristic mood and style. This collection includes portraits of Lord and Lady Spencer, Henry James, William Butler Yeats, Vaslav Nijimsky, Tamara Karsavina, Dame Ethel Smyth, and Jascha Heifetz. Artists, students, historians, and lovers of portraiture will appreciate this selection of drawings by Sargent. Anyone interested in trying his hand at portraiture will find this volume both instructional and inspirational.

Sargent Portrait Drawings: 42 Works by John Singer Sargent (Dover Art Library)

John Singer Sargent

Dover Publications

Exhibition catalogue, with an essay by Trevor Fairbrother, exhibition history and bibliography. Published by Van de Weghe Fine Art, New York, 2004. Fully illustrated, in color, with installation views. Hard cover, with jacket, 10 x 11 ¾ inches (25 x 30 cm), 90 pp.

Andy Warhol, Dollar Signs

Andy Warhol

Van de Weghe Fine Art

Family Ties: A Contemporary Perspective

If family is often considered the backbone of civilization, it has undergone serious rethinking over the past few decades. Most disciplines, from sociology to psychotherapy to economics, have had their turn at analyzing, theorizing and representing the family in all its many forms. In Family Ties, the relationships that bind families are explored via nearly 60 contemporary artists. Alice Neel paints mother daughter portraits; Nicholas Nixon photographs his wife and her three sisters every year for 25 years; Larry Fink documents the blue-collar Sabatines; Sanford Biggers and Jennifer Zackin, who grew up, respectively, in middle-class black Christian and white Jewish families, run parallel slide shows of their childhood Kodak moments; and Roger Shimomura renders pop images from the Japanese internment camps where his family spent part of his childhood. Published in conjunction with Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts and an exhibition opening there in June 2003. (Jun 21 - Sep 21.03)

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Marquand Books

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Books by Trevor Fairbrother