THE GRAND AFFAIR JOHN SINGER SARGENT In His World by Paul Fisher

Paul Fisher draws a fascinating, comprehensive view into the life of the great American artist, John Singer Sargent. Guided by a mother intent on filling her son’s life with art and culture, he soaks up the rich art scene of the mid to late 1800’s in Europe’s salons, museums and artists’ studios.

Laden with intricate details of his life and mentors, Fisher’s portrait of Sargent investigates his early influences and later relationships from people of substance painting the wealthy and the powerful but intrigued with street artists and colorful types.

A man of his time, Sargent was an enigma and even though an old friend noted “he’d never known an unpleasant thought”… Sargent systematically “distanced” himself from people.

From Henry James to Oscar Wilde, Sargent fed on the fin-de-siècle indulgences in sex and art moving into the edges of acceptance by painting a Black elevator operator and part-time contortionist Thomas McKellor. Shaped as well by the Great War, Sargent observed, “The nearer to dancer the fewer and more hidden the men.”

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis