John Singer Sargent (The Library of American Art)

In "John Singer Sargent," Trevor Fairbrother, Deputy Director for Art and John and Mary Shirley Curator of Modern Art at the Seattle Art Museum, presents a rich and thoughtful interpretation of Sargent and his art. Fairbrother explores the opposing elements that made Sargent a complex figure and a great artist: he accepted his New England Puritan heritage but, for the most part, lived grandly in Europe; he achieved wealth and fame as a portraitist while hoping that his murals in Boston cultural institutions would win him a loftier reputation; his art revels in the sumptuous effects of brilliant paint surfaces but Sargent himself was shy and retiring in public; the worldy, sophisticated persona of a preeminent artist of the Gilded Age may have concealed a conflicted sexuality.