GREAT EXPECTATIONS:
John Singer Sargent Painting Children
Sargent's reputation is often defined by his achievements as a painter of sophisticated society portraits. However, as this examination of his career reveals, he created a significant number of portraits of children and genre paintings featuring children. The title of this book makes ironic reference to Charles Dickens' novel "Great Expectations," and is used here to suggest how Sargent's paintings of children related to the expectations associated with representations of childhood in art and literature. How Sargent ultimately advanced childhood as an artistic subject is discussed in this volume.
There are essays by curators and professors of fine arts, and color illustrations of Sargent's often lesser-known paintings of children. Included are Sargent family photographs, some of which are previously unpublished.
Barbara Dayer Gallati is Curator of American Art at the Brooklyn Museum and is on the art history faculty of the School of Visual Arts, New York.
2004; 11" x 9.75"; 255 pages
Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum