Sargent Exhibits

John Singer Sargent exhibits for the first time in 25 years. Seventy-two portraits, landscapes, water-colors occupy the Grand Central Art Galleries, Manhattan, and will remain there for the coming month. The last Sargent exhibit was held in Boston under the auspices of the Art Students' Association with some 40 canvases assembled.

The New York exhibition (TiME, Feb. 11) is in the nature of a graduation exercise. For 50 years Sargent has been painting portraits, completing hundreds of likenesses of prominent men and women. Ten years ago he announced to a surprised public that he would give up portraiture, in which he had achieved wealth and fame, since it entailed too much drudgery, allowed him too little freedom. But the advent of the War created such a multitude of strong and important characters that he was persuaded to postpone his departure from his best known field, to crystallize for coming generations the characters of the great men of today. Now, in spite of fabulous inducements, he is adamantine in his refusal to create canvases which no longer interest him.

The pictures now hanging in the Galleries over the Grand Central Station have been loaned by Museums and private owners all over the country. The selection was made by Mr. Sargent himself.

Among the most conspicuous portraits, covering a period of half a century, are: Mrs. Henry White, loaned by Mr. White, and regarded by Sargent as "one of his best"; Mrs. H. F. Hadden, painted in 1878 and the earliest example in the exhibition; Joseph Pulitzer, probably the best portrait shown; A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard President--the most recent of Sargent's portraits; General Leonard Wood, also recent. There are portraits of stage celebrities, such as those of Ada Rehari and Edwin Booth, the latter loaned By Mrs. Willard Straight. Among the better" known portraits, are also: The Lady with Rose, painted in 1882 and loaned by Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney;

Dr. Edward Robinson, Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Mr. Sargent's fame is great in England, where (with his Werthheimer portraits) he is the first living artist to be represented in the National Gallery. His portrait of the late Woodrow Wilson hangs in the National Gallery in Ireland. It is in England that Sargent is acclaimed as "the only living old master." And it was George Moore who wrote of Mr. Sargent's art as "the apotheosis of fashionable painting."

Sargent's Manhattan exhibition is insured against damage to the extent of $1,000,000, although this is only about half the worth of the pictures. Individual pictures range from $6,000 to $60,000 in value.