![]() ![]() Following more additions to the family and because his wife wanted to remain in Europe, John Singer Sargent’s father eventually resigned his post at the Willis Eye Hospital in Philadelphia and acquiesced to his wife’s wishes for the family to remain in Europe. ![]() Art played a great part in his early life as his mother was a talented amateur artist and his father was a talented medical illustrator. He proved to be an excellent pupil excelling in languages and the arts. Their son John was born in January 1856 whilst they were in Florence.īecause of the nomadic lifestyle of the family and because of his determination not to stay in school, John Singer Sargent did not receive formal schooling and was taught at home by his father and mother. He and his wife based themselves in Paris but they would often travel and stay in Florence, Rome, or Nice in the winters and in the summers they would journey to the Alps were the climate was much cooler and more pleasant. Initially Sargent’s father’s idea was for he and his wife to stay in Europe just a short time until she was better but their life away from America extended and soon they became expatriates. Sargent’s mother suffered a nervous breakdown after the death of her daughter and her husband decided that it would be better for his wife’s health to move away from Philadelphia and the sad memories and take up residency in Europe. In 1853 Mary gave birth to their first child, a daughter, who sadly died a year later. In 1850, Fitzwilliam Sargent married Mary Newbold Singer who was the daughter of a successful local merchant. It was in that city that John Singer Sargent’s father, Fitzwilliam Sargent became an eye surgeon. Due to a failed merchant-shipping business in Gloucester, Massachusetts, he moved his family to Philadelphia. His grandfather was Winthrop Sargent IV, who had descended from one of the oldest colonial families. ![]() My featured artist is John Singer Sargent. Self portrait by John Singer Sargent (1907) My blog today follows a similar theme, a controversial painting which had major repercussions on the artist and his career. In my last blog I featured a painting by Theodore Roussel entitled The Reading Girl which was at the time both controversial and newsworthy, only going to prove the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity. ![]()
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