The Musée d'Orsay in Paris is presenting the first major French exhibition dedicated to American painter John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), showcasing works from an artist who remains surprisingly unknown in France despite his celebrated status in the United States and the United Kingdom. The exhibition, titled "John Singer Sargent: Dazzling Paris," runs through January 11, 2026, and was developed in co-production with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Rather than presenting Sargent's complete body of work, the Musée d'Orsay has chosen to focus on his brilliant Parisian years, the period between his youth spent traveling across Europe with his family and his eventual move to England. It was in Paris that Sargent forged his distinctive style and pictorial technique with remarkable precocity. As writer Henry James observed about the artist in 1883, "Sargent's painting offers the strangely unsettling spectacle of a talent that, at the threshold of his career, already has nothing left to learn."
Sargent was a polyglot who was gifted at both piano and watercolor painting. He studied in Dresden and then Florence before settling in Paris, where he entered the École des Beaux-Arts and joined the workshop of Carolus-Duran. His rise was meteoric. Encouraged by his master, he traveled to the Prado Museum in Madrid and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam to study the works of Velázquez and Rembrandt. Art historians often place him at the crossroads between Impressionism and Academicism.
Modern Paris itself didn't particularly interest Sargent; instead, he traveled extensively to find his subjects, from Cancale to Capri, passing through Spain and Morocco. His early works depicted everyday scenes such as palace interiors in Venice and strollers in the Luxembourg Gardens. He also created compositions of wild originality, such as "Rehearsal of the Pasdeloup Orchestra at the Cirque d'Hiver," a small painting in shades of gray that almost resembles a musical score, and "Storm on the Atlantic," which shows a ship's deck caught in waves, vertical against a wall of water.
Games of shadow and light frequently appear in his repertoire, as seen in "Spanish Dance," almost entirely plunged in darkness, and "Fumée d'Ambre Gris," with its dazzling white-on-white effects. Each year, he sent works to the Salon, mostly portraits. His paintings were often commissions: members of the Pailleron family, Dr. Pozzi in a red dressing gown, and the daughters of Edward Darley Boit posing as if in Velázquez's "Las Meninas." He also painted his friends and close associates: painter Paul Helleu, sculptor Auguste Rodin, novelist Emma Allouard-Jouan, and art critic Louis de Fourcaud.
Sargent's career seemed flawless until 1884, when "Madame X" (a portrait of Virginie Gautreau) caused a scandal. He considered it "the best thing [he had] done" and kept a later, unfinished version of the painting in his studio until the model's death. "Madame X" shocked viewers with the cadaverous complexion of this woman known for her beauty and her habit of painting her entire body, the fallen strap of her black dress (a detail the painter later retouched), and her profile reminiscent of Piero della Francesca, which was considered haughty.
Two years later, Sargent eventually settled in London but maintained ties with France through composer Gabriel Fauré, patron Winnaretta Singer, and Claude Monet, with whom he fought to keep Manet's "Olympia" in France. Then, in 1892, came his revenge. The Salon celebrated him once again for his portrait of the dancer Carmencita, which recalls his immense painting "El Jaleo" (absent from the current exhibition). The triumphant air of this woman may also reflect Sargent's own sense of vindication and artistic triumph.
