Motorcycle [verso]

1918 · Drawing

Particulars

Accession number: 2015.19.648.b

Meanwhile, in the life of John Singer Sargent

The whole life

1895–1919
The “Triumph of Religion” murals for the Boston Public Library
From 1895 through 1919, for almost thirty years, Sargent works on his largest-scale work, the mural decorations “Triumph of Religion” for the Boston Public Library, showing religion's progress from pagan superstition to the ascension of Christianity; he never completes the final mural of the cycle.
1916
Sells “Madame X” to the Metropolitan Museum
Sargent keeps “Madame X” prominently displayed in his London studio until he sells it in 1916 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, after moving to the United States and a few months after Gautreau's death.
1916
An honorary degree from Harvard University
In 1916 Harvard University awards Sargent an honorary degree.
1918
Commissioned as a war artist
On his return to England in 1918 after a visit to the United States Sargent is commissioned as a war artist by the British Ministry of Information; he depicts scenes from the Great War in his large painting “Gassed” and in many watercolours.
Good Friday 1918
His niece Rose-Marie killed in the shelling of Paris
On Good Friday 1918 his niece Rose-Marie dies in the shelling of the church of St Gervais in Paris; Sargent is deeply affected by her death.

All works

Neighbors at National Gallery of Art

Museum page

On the same theme · Military

All works on the theme

late 1919

The row over the murals “The Church” and “The Synagogue”

The paintings “The Church” and “The Synagogue”, installed in late 1919, portray Christianity as a lovely, radiant young woman and Judaism as a blind, ugly hag, and seem to Boston's Jews to show Judaism defeated; Sargent is both surprised and hurt by the criticism and in the end abandons his plan to finish the murals.