Richard Ormond: John Singer Sargent: A Personal View

Drawing on family documents and reminiscences, Richard Ormond traces the story of John Singer Sargent’s upbringing as an American expatriate in Europe in the 1850s and ‘60s and charts the family relationships and friendships that mattered most to the artist. The lecture will highlight the key turning points in Sargent’s career; his early successes in Paris, ending with the scandal surrounding his famous portrait of Madame Gautreau (1884); his struggles to establish himself in London (1886-93); his break-through in New York and Boston during his first professional visit to his home country (1887-88); his rise to fame in the 1890s as the greatest Anglo-American portraitist of his generation; and his decision in 1907 to give up portraiture in favour of landscape and his mural projects.

Former deputy director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, and director of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK (1986-2000), Richard Ormond is currently director of the Sargent catalogue raisonné project and Chairman of the Watts Gallery, Compton, UK. He was the curator of the 2015 exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends. He is a great-nephew of the artist.

Free tickets for Friends are available April 15: artsmia.org or 612.870.6323. Tickets available for the general public April 17. Overflow seating in the Wells Fargo Community Room.

The Mark and Mary Goff Fiterman Lectures are presented by the Friends of the Institute and Mia.