Fashioned by Sargent

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) brought his sitters to life, but he did much more than simply record what appeared before him. He pinned and draped, he changed or ignored decorative details, and sometimes he simply made it up. Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), and Tate Britain, Fashioned by Sargent explores the artist’s influence over his sitters’ images by illuminating the liberties he took with sartorial choices to express distinctive personalities, social positions, professions, gender identities and nationalities. The exhibition features approximately 50 paintings by Sargent—including major loans from museums and private collections around the world—along with more than a dozen dresses and accessories. Several of these garments are reunited for the first time with Sargent’s portraits of the sitters who once wore them. Through the lens of dress, Fashioned by Sargent presents exciting new scholarship and offers a new perspective on the artist’s creative practice.

Fashioned by Sargent is sponsored by Bank of America. Generously supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art, and Tom and Bonnie Rosse. Additional support from Lynn Dale and Frank Wisneski, the Barbara M. Eagle Exhibition Fund, the MFA Associates / MFA Senior Associates Exhibition Endowment Fund, the Dr. Lawrence H. and Roberta Cohn Fund for Exhibitions, and the Alexander M. Levine and Dr. Rosemarie D. Bria-Levine Exhibition Fund. Fashioned by Sargent is co-organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Tate Britain, London.

“The MFA and Tate Britain both began supporting John Singer Sargent during his lifetime, and we’re proud to partner on this major exhibition that offers new perspectives on this beloved painter,” said Matthew Teitelbaum, Ann and Graham Gund Director. “Sargent’s world, much like our own, was aware of the power of an image to mask reality and invent new narratives and identities. Fashioned by Sargent encourages us to think deeply about the creation of a portrait— how it affects both how we see others and how the world sees us.”

Following its presentation at the MFA from October 8, 2023 through January 15, 2024, the exhibition will travel to Tate Britain, where it will be on view from February 21 through July 7, 2024.

Timed-entry exhibition tickets, which include general admission, are required for all visitors and can be reserved in advance on mfa.org or purchased at the Museum. Member Preview for Fashioned by Sargent takes place October 4–7.

“Through the dynamics of dress, we can see that Sargent did not pander to his wealthy clients—he was in charge, and art making always came first,” said Erica E. Hirshler, Croll Senior Curator of American Paintings and exhibition organizer. “He clearly took the lead in creating his portraits, sometimes entirely ignoring his patron’s preferences to fulfill his own creative vision. Sargent controlled the sitter’s image.”

The exhibition is organized thematically, providing a dramatic glimpse into the world of the painter, the studio, his sitters and his technique:

• “The Studio in Black and White” reveals Sargent’s studios as sites of imagination. It explores his preference for painting sitters wearing black or white, inspired by 17th-century painters Frans Hals and Diego Velázquez, and demonstrating his mastery of difficult techniques.
   
• “The Art of Dress” explores the role of fashion for women in society, and the way Sargent engineered his sitters’ choices to best serve his art.
   
• “Sporting with Gender” shows how Sargent used sartorial choices to signal gender ambiguity, tradition and the shifting roles accorded to men and women of the period.
   
• “Portraiture and Performance” includes subjects in dramatic costumes, among them Sargent’s portrayal of Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth (1889, Tate Britain), which is displayed for the first time with the brilliant green beetle-wing encrusted gown that she wore on stage.
   
• “Fashioning Power” emphasizes how clothing—whether uniform, ceremonial attire or even a deliberate choice of casual dress—can signify wealth and position.
   
• “Outside Fashion” closes the exhibition with a demonstration of Sargent’s fascination with the ways textiles could be manipulated—folded, twisted and draped—to explore light and shadow.

In addition to style icons like Madame X (1883–84, The Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1892, National Galleries of Scotland), major loans include Lady Sassoon (1907, Private Collection) and her black taffeta opera cloak (Private Collection); Lady Helen Vincent, Viscountess D’Abernon (1904, Birmingham Museum of Art), which was treated in the MFA’s Conservation Center for display in the exhibition; La Carmencita (about 1890, Musée d’Orsay), shown for the first time alongside the dancer’s sparkling yellow satin costume; the striking portrait of Elsie Palmer (1889–90, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center); and Dr. Pozzi at Home (1881, Hammer Museum), which shows the accomplished surgeon in a flowing red dressing gown and Turkish slippers.

Fashion items including Worth gowns and fans and six paintings by Sargent are drawn from the MFA’s own collection, which numbers almost 600 works by the artist in all media—the most comprehensive assemblage of his art in a public institution—and includes the John Singer Sargent Archive. Sargent claimed both Boston and London as his home, and together, the MFA and Tate Britain have served as guardians of the artist’s legacy.

John Singer Sargent

Born in 1856 in Florence, Italy, to two American parents, John Singer Sargent was recognized as a talented artist from a young age. His mother was an avid traveler, curious about the world, and his father was a doctor with roots in Gloucester and Philadelphia. Sargent had a cosmopolitan childhood: he was immersed in European art and culture, speaking French, Italian, and German in addition to English. He studied briefly at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, and at the age of 18 enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and entered the independent atelier of the portrait painter Carolus-Duran. Sargent exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon from 1877, establishing his own studio in Paris until 1886, when he moved to London. Sargent became the leading portrait painter of his generation, producing 900 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolors, and countless sketches. By the mid-1900s he left his portrait work and concentrated on large-scale mural commissions for the Boston Public Library; Harvard University’s Widener Library; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 1918, he accepted a role as an official war artist and traveled to the Western Front. Sargent died in London in 1925. After his death, memorial exhibitions were held in Boston, London, and New York.

Publication

Produced by MFA Publications, the new book Fashioned by Sargent presents original scholarship and beautiful reproductions of paintings by Sargent and costumes of the period, including garments worn by the sitters. Essays on a range of themes, including portraits as performances, the role of fashion in the world of art, gender expression, the new woman, old master influences, painting fashion, transnationalism, and the development of the couture industry shed fascinating new light on the beloved American painter and his subjects. 

A lavish exploration of Sargent’s relationship to fashion, featuring exquisite costumes from the Gilded Age

"The coat is the picture," John Singer Sargent explained to his fellow artist Graham Robertson in the summer of 1894, tugging a heavy garment ever more tightly around his sitter’s slender figure. More attentive to what he hoped to accomplish as a painter than he was to the dictates of contemporary fashion, Sargent often chose what his sitters would wear. Even when they came to him dressed in the latest mode, he frequently ignored or simplified the details, concentrating on texture, drape and the way fabrics responded to light. Exploiting dress as an integral ingredient of his own artistry, Sargent used clothes to proclaim his own aesthetic agenda while simultaneously establishing his sitters’ social position, profession, gender identity and nationality.
Fashioned by Sargent explores the complicated relationship of painting and dress through lavish reproductions of Sargent’s works alongside exquisite costumes of the period―including garments actually worn by his sitters. Essays by leading scholars illuminate topics such as portraits and performance, gender expression and the New Woman, and the pull of history and the excitement of new ideas, offering readers new insights into masterworks by a beloved American artist.

Image

John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925) Oil on canvas

*National Gallery of Scotland, Purchased with the aid of the Cowan Smith Bequest Fund 1925

*Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Mrs. Charles E. Inches (Louise Pomeroy), 1887 John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925)

Oil on canvas

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Anonymous gift in memory of Mrs. Charles Inches' daughter, Louise Brimmer Inches Seton

*Photograph© Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Mrs. Fiske Warren (Gretchen Osgood) and Her Daughter Rachel,1903 John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925)

Oil on canvas

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Mrs. Rachel Warren Barton and Emily L. Ainsley Fund

*Photograph© Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Dr. Pozzi at Home,1881

John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925) Oil on canvas

The Armand Hammer Collection, Gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

John D. Rockefeller,1917

John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925) Oil on canvas

*Kykuit, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Pocantico Hills, NY. Bequest of John D. Rockefeller 3rd, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Laurance S. Rockefeller, David Rockefeller

Image by Ben Asen

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Madame Ramon Subercaseaux (Amalia Errazuriz),1880-1881 John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925)

Oil on canvas

*The FayezS.Sarofim Collection

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Elsie Palmer, or A Lady in White,1889-1890 John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925) Oil on canvas

Collection of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College. Museum Purchase Fund Acquired Through Public Subscription and Debutante Ball Purchase Fund, FA,1969.3.1

*Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Lady Helen Vincent, Viscountess d'Abernon (Helen Duncombe),1904 John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925)

Oil on canvas

*Birmingham Museum of Art, Museum purchase with funds provided by John Bohorfoush, the 1984 Museum Dinner and Ball, and the Museum Store,1984.121

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Lady Sassoon (Aline de Rothschild),1907 John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925) Oil on canvas

*Private Collection

*Image© Houghton Hall

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Nonchaloir (Repose), 1911

John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925) Oil on canvas

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Gift of Curt H. Reisinger, 1948.16.1

Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Miss Jane Evans,1898

John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925) Oil on canvas

Lent by the Provost and Fellows of Eton College (FDA‑P.191‑ 2010)

Reproduced by permission of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College.

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth,1889

John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925) Oil on canvas

Tate Britain, Presented by Sir Joseph Duveen 1906

Photo: Tate

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau), 1883-1884 John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925)

Oil on canvas

Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Arthur Hoppock Hearn Fund,1916

*Image© The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

La Carmencita (Carmen Dauset Moreno), about 1890 John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925)

Oil on canvas

Paris, Musee d'Orsay. Purchased from the artist for the State, for the Luxembourg, 1892

© RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Lord Ribblesdale, 1902

John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925) Oil on canvas

The National Gallery of London, Presented by Lord Ribblesdale in memory of Lady Ribblesdale and his sons, Captain the Hon. Thomas Lister and Lieutenant the Hon. Charles Lister,1916

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Almina, Daughter of Asher Wertheimer,1908 John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925)

Oil on canvas

*Tate Britain, Presented by the widow and family of Asher Wertheimer in accordance with his wishes 1922

Photo: Tate

*Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

W. Graham Robertson,1894

John Singer Sargent (American,1856-1925) Oil on canvas

Tate Britain, Presented by W. Graham Robertson 1940

Photo: Tate

Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston