A Wall Street Journal and Times Literary Supplement B ook of the Year
Long-listed for the Plutarch Award A bold new biography of the legendary painter John Singer Sargent, stressing the unruly emotions and furtive desires that drove his innovative work and defined the transatlantic, fin de siècle culture he inhabited. A great American artist, John Singer Sargent is also an abiding enigma. While dressing like a businessman and crafting a highly respectable persona, he scandalized viewers on both sides of the Atlantic with the frankness and sensuality of his work. He charmed the nouveaux riches as well as the old money, but he reserved his greatest sympathies for Bedouins, Spanish dancers, and the gondoliers of Venice. At the height of his renown in Britain and America, he quit his lucrative portrait-painting career to concentrate on allegorical murals with religious themes―and on nude drawings of male models that he kept to himself. In The Grand Affair , the historian Paul Fisher offers a vivid life of the buttoned-up artist and his unbuttoned work. Sargent’s nervy, edgy portraits exposed illicit or dark feelings in himself and his sitters―feelings that high society on both sides of the Atlantic found fascinating and off-putting. Fisher traces Singer’s life from his wandering trans-European childhood to the salons of Paris, and the scandals and enthusiasms he caused, and on to London. There he mixed with eccentrics and aristocrats, and the likes of Henry James and Oscar Wilde, while at the same time forming a close relationship with a lightweight boxer who became his model, valet, and traveling partner. In later years, Sargent met up with his friend and patron Isabella Stewart Gardner around the world and devoted himself to a new model, the African American elevator operator and part-time contortionist Thomas McKeller, who would become the subject of some of Sargent’s most daring and powerful work. Illuminating Sargent’s restless itinerary, Fisher explores the enigmas of fin de siècle sexuality and art, fashioning a biography that grants the man and his paintings new and intense life. "A comprehensive and engaging biography of the artist . . . A precise and erudite writer with a strong, authoritative voice, Fisher combines biography, history, and art criticism to give readers an immersive vision of Sargent’s extraordinary life and times . . . [His] ability to get to the heart of Sargent’s genius makes The Grand Affair a truly defining work, and one worth revisiting in order to relish every last detail." ―Michael Patrick Brady, WBUR "[A] sensitive biography . . . Fisher wisely avoids making sweeping claims about Sargent’s sexuality, choosing instead to examine how 'the protected and sanctioned camaraderie of the studio' enabled the painter’s art and social life to take on quietly unconventional forms." ― The New Yorker "[An] extremely well-researched and anecdotally rich biography . . . The Grand Affair is not reductive; it’s a full-scale, fascinating story of an exceptional artist, informed by the new freedom to discuss homosexuality in a way that was not possible before." ― Andrew Holleran, The Gay & Lesbian Review "[ The Grand affair ] begins from a new perspective, investigating every nook and cranny of Sargent’s peripatetic life, looking for tangible clues to Sargent the man . . . Intriguing . . . Fisher indisputably gives us much to reflect on regarding the artist’s travels, his social and studio circles, his close friends, and the hitherto largely hidden gay enclaves of the Belle Époque." ―Sue Roe, The Wall Street Journal "[Fisher] writes perceptive appreciations of such famous paintings as Portrait of Madame X . . . These passages and many more forcefully remind us of the sheer beauty of Sargent’s work . . . Fisher has worked hard to integrate [Sargent's] two halves into a coherent portrait of a complicated man . . . Valuable." ―Wendy Smith, The Boston Globe "[An] absorbing new biography . . . A very lively and illuminating reassessment of one of the greatest painters of his time." ―Peter Parker, The Spectator "A vibrant, authoritative biography . . . Sargent’s 'social and aesthetic relevance―both to his time and ours,' Fisher argues convincingly, derives from 'his representation of an ever-more-complex modernity and an ever-more-diverse and multicultural world.' A sensitive, nuanced portrait." ― Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “In this masterful biography, Paul Fisher reveals the rich and shadowy truths at the heart of John Singer Sargent’s life, while also offering a stunning reassessment of the famous painter’s work. Sargent, we learn, was far more than a polished society artist―he was a bold seeker who was impatient with rules and struggled to free himself from the constraints of his world, from racism to restrictive gender roles. A thrill to read, The Grand Affair is entirely absorbing―suspenseful, witty, poignant, and gripping.” ― Charlotte Gor
Long-listed for the Plutarch Award A bold new biography of the legendary painter John Singer Sargent, stressing the unruly emotions and furtive desires that drove his innovative work and defined the transatlantic, fin de siècle culture he inhabited. A great American artist, John Singer Sargent is also an abiding enigma. While dressing like a businessman and crafting a highly respectable persona, he scandalized viewers on both sides of the Atlantic with the frankness and sensuality of his work. He charmed the nouveaux riches as well as the old money, but he reserved his greatest sympathies for Bedouins, Spanish dancers, and the gondoliers of Venice. At the height of his renown in Britain and America, he quit his lucrative portrait-painting career to concentrate on allegorical murals with religious themes―and on nude drawings of male models that he kept to himself. In The Grand Affair , the historian Paul Fisher offers a vivid life of the buttoned-up artist and his unbuttoned work. Sargent’s nervy, edgy portraits exposed illicit or dark feelings in himself and his sitters―feelings that high society on both sides of the Atlantic found fascinating and off-putting. Fisher traces Singer’s life from his wandering trans-European childhood to the salons of Paris, and the scandals and enthusiasms he caused, and on to London. There he mixed with eccentrics and aristocrats, and the likes of Henry James and Oscar Wilde, while at the same time forming a close relationship with a lightweight boxer who became his model, valet, and traveling partner. In later years, Sargent met up with his friend and patron Isabella Stewart Gardner around the world and devoted himself to a new model, the African American elevator operator and part-time contortionist Thomas McKeller, who would become the subject of some of Sargent’s most daring and powerful work. Illuminating Sargent’s restless itinerary, Fisher explores the enigmas of fin de siècle sexuality and art, fashioning a biography that grants the man and his paintings new and intense life. "A comprehensive and engaging biography of the artist . . . A precise and erudite writer with a strong, authoritative voice, Fisher combines biography, history, and art criticism to give readers an immersive vision of Sargent’s extraordinary life and times . . . [His] ability to get to the heart of Sargent’s genius makes The Grand Affair a truly defining work, and one worth revisiting in order to relish every last detail." ―Michael Patrick Brady, WBUR "[A] sensitive biography . . . Fisher wisely avoids making sweeping claims about Sargent’s sexuality, choosing instead to examine how 'the protected and sanctioned camaraderie of the studio' enabled the painter’s art and social life to take on quietly unconventional forms." ― The New Yorker "[An] extremely well-researched and anecdotally rich biography . . . The Grand Affair is not reductive; it’s a full-scale, fascinating story of an exceptional artist, informed by the new freedom to discuss homosexuality in a way that was not possible before." ― Andrew Holleran, The Gay & Lesbian Review "[ The Grand affair ] begins from a new perspective, investigating every nook and cranny of Sargent’s peripatetic life, looking for tangible clues to Sargent the man . . . Intriguing . . . Fisher indisputably gives us much to reflect on regarding the artist’s travels, his social and studio circles, his close friends, and the hitherto largely hidden gay enclaves of the Belle Époque." ―Sue Roe, The Wall Street Journal "[Fisher] writes perceptive appreciations of such famous paintings as Portrait of Madame X . . . These passages and many more forcefully remind us of the sheer beauty of Sargent’s work . . . Fisher has worked hard to integrate [Sargent's] two halves into a coherent portrait of a complicated man . . . Valuable." ―Wendy Smith, The Boston Globe "[An] absorbing new biography . . . A very lively and illuminating reassessment of one of the greatest painters of his time." ―Peter Parker, The Spectator "A vibrant, authoritative biography . . . Sargent’s 'social and aesthetic relevance―both to his time and ours,' Fisher argues convincingly, derives from 'his representation of an ever-more-complex modernity and an ever-more-diverse and multicultural world.' A sensitive, nuanced portrait." ― Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “In this masterful biography, Paul Fisher reveals the rich and shadowy truths at the heart of John Singer Sargent’s life, while also offering a stunning reassessment of the famous painter’s work. Sargent, we learn, was far more than a polished society artist―he was a bold seeker who was impatient with rules and struggled to free himself from the constraints of his world, from racism to restrictive gender roles. A thrill to read, The Grand Affair is entirely absorbing―suspenseful, witty, poignant, and gripping.” ― Charlotte Gor