The Surprisingly Risque World of Society Painter John Singer Sargent

 

John Singer Sargent self portrait

Factoids to impress your friends from the new portrait exhibition at the Met

by 

James Tarmy

June 25, 2015, 8:30 AM CDT

It’s easy to peg John Singer Sargent—whose best-known portraits are of stiff-backed children and elaborately dressed socialites drowning in tulle—as a fluffy society painter of the rigid late-Victorian era. To wit, the biggest scandal of his career involved a portrait of “Madame X,” aka socialite Virginie Amelie Avegno Gautrea, with a lasciviously draped dress strap falling onto her shoulder. (Gasp!)

But Sargent (1856–1925) was infinitely more freewheeling than his better-known works would imply. In the exhibition Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends, which opens on June 30 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, a different kind of painter emerges.

“The show demonstrates that he moved very easily through these circles of progressive society,” says Stephanie Herdrich, who co-curated the show. “Many gay men, flamboyant performers, intellectuals, he was very comfortable with all of them.”


There are 91 portraits of just these characters in the show (along with another 21 drawings from the Met’s collection), which range from the famous—Claude Monet, Robert Louis Stevenson, W.B. Yeats, and Henry James—to random characters whom Sargent encountered as he bounced around Europe and North America. We’ve chosen a few of the most notable examples, the radical feminists and captains of industry and flamenco dancers, who present a neat alternative to Sargent’s reputation as a fussy painter of the upper crust.

Dr Pozzi at Home, 1881 - John Singer Sargent

The Parisian Samuel-Jean Pozzi palled around with royalty and wrote one of the first major textbooks on gynecological surgery. He was an early patron of Sargent, and, among other things, collected antiquities, sculpture, and tapestries. Viewers of the portrait, where the doctor lounges in a crimson bathrobe while fingering his lapel, will probably not be surprised to learn that he was also considered “a sensualist and an aesthete,” according to the catalog.

John Singer Sargent, Léon Delafosse, c. 1895-8

Léon Delafosse, whose patron was Comte Robert de Montesquiou, was a celebrated pianist and composer and friend of the Parisian beau monde, including Proust. “Sargent was so intimately a part of these circles,” Herdrich says. “We think of him quickly dashing off society portraits, but he was deliberately seeking out these intellectuals.” Still, there was a question of accessories. As Sargent wrote to a friend: “Of course Delafosse is a decadent especially in the matter of neck-ties—but he is a very intelligent little Frenchman.”

John Singer Sargent, Man Wearing Laurels, 1874-80

Lord Dalhousie (1900). John Singer Sargent. Oil on canvas. 101.6 x 152.4 cm. Private collection

John Singer Sargent

J.C. Leyendecker

Before Rockwell, a Gay Artist Defined the Perfect American Male

By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — August 28th, 2012

J.C. Leyendecker in 1895.

Nobody had to tell J.C. Leyendecker that sex sells. Before the conservative backlash of the mid-20th century, the American public celebrated his images of sleek muscle-men, whose glistening homo-eroticism adorned endless magazine covers. Yet Leyendecker’s name is almost forgotten, whitewashed over by Norman Rockwell’s legacy of tame, small-town Americana.

Rockwell was just an 11-year old kid when Leyendecker created the legendary “Arrow Collar Man” in 1905, used to advertise the clothing company’s miraculous detachable collars. One of America’s first recognizable sex symbols, this icon of masculinity was defined by his poise and perfection, whether on the sports field or at the dinner table. Like the Gibson Girl, the Arrow Collar Man developed a singular identity, equal parts jock and dandy, who supposedly received more fan letters than silent film heartthrob Rudolph Valentino. To top things off, Leyendecker’s men were often modeled after his lover and lifetime companion, Charles Beach, making their secret romance a front-page feature across the U.S.

Leyendecker’s painting of Mercury, the god of speed, for Collier’s in 1907 draws from classical sculpture.

Born in 1874, Joseph Christian Leyendecker emigrated with his family from Germany to Chicago in 1882 and soon began apprenticing with illustrators. After a brief stint studying art in Paris, Leyendecker returned to Chicago, where he established relationships with renowned magazines like “Collier’s” and “The Saturday Evening Post,” for whom he would ultimately design 322 covers. While Leyendecker was also known for his depictions of apple-cheeked children and elegant women, it was his stern, brooding men who created the greatest impact. With their strong jaws and perfectly tailored clothes, Leyendecker’s men were featured in the pages of newspapers and magazines across the globe, selling everything from luxury automobiles to socks. Leyendecker’s fictional world of affluence and beauty influenced other pop-culture touchstones, like the fantastic setting of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” As fashions changed and the U.S. entered World War II, Leyendecker’s career slumped, curbing his extravagant lifestyle. After his death of a heart attack in 1951, Leyendecker left few assets for his partner, Charles Beach, and many of his original paintings were sold at a rummage sale for $75 each. Alfredo Villanueva-Collado, a former literature professor at the City University of New York and established collector of Bohemian art glass, filled us in on his J.C. Leyendecker collection and the fascinating story behind this oft-neglected male image maker.

This 1932 Leyendecker cover image for the “Saturday Evening Post” literally puts the near-naked male on a pedestal.

Collectors Weekly: How did you first discover J.C. Leyendecker? Villanueva-Collado: My partner was a graphic artist, and when we first arrived to the U.S. we were really into the Arts and Crafts movement. But, of course, his thing was graphics, and when we started researching, we found out there was life before Norman Rockwell. And then we found out what kind of life, and we went, “What? Leyendecker’s gay? No, it can’t be.” It freaked me out, and I’ve never been in the closet. I first realized Leyendecker was gay from the subtext, and then went looking for evidence through my research, and the evidence was there. It was often mentioned in passing, since the intimate details only came out later. Leyendecker knew very well he couldn’t break barriers; he could only suggest the subject. As a literature professor, I was fascinated by the semiotics of Leyendecker’s images, because I know a lot of gay artists had to use what I call the “palimpsest technique.” Palimpsest refers to the fact that parchment used to be so expensive they would have to paint it over to write something new, and that is the essence of semiotics, the text that is hidden beneath the visible text. Especially in literature, in anything having to do with gays, it’s been done to perfection. You have to hide it, not expose it like you can today.

In this 1907 Leyendecker painting for Arrow dress shirts, all eyes lead to the dapper man in brown.

Leyendecker had a fascination with asses, with muscles, and it was so evident. I kept wondering, how come nobody else says this? It’s right in your face, for heaven’s sake. I found it extremely interesting that there were three brothers–of which both Frank and J.C. turned out gay–and a sister, Augusta, who never married. Both of the Leyendecker brothers were in Paris at a very crucial moment in 1884. They absorbed the academic French way of drawing, but it was also the time when Baron Von Gloeden’s photographs were all over the place. Von Gloeden was gay and also idolized the masculine body. This went contrary to the contemporary worshipping of the female body as a siren or as a vampire, and foretold–I hate to say–the Nazi aesthetic, the worship of the male body. But they didn’t know that, and that was not their intention.

Collectors Weekly: When did Leyendecker first paint Charles Beach? Villanueva-Collado: J.C. was 29, but Beach, who must have been quite a hunk, was only 17. For the first few years, the brothers kept an apartment here in New York, and Beach had some kind of residence nearby. But then when the Leyendeckers moved to their mansion in New Rochelle in 1914, which J.C. had built, Beach moved in with them. Their sister, Augusta, apparently hated him from the moment she saw him. Beach not only became Leyendecker’s favorite model but also the man who ran the household, and their relationship lasted 50 years. They hosted these crazy 1920s Belle Epoch parties that Beach organized, and the crème de la crème of New York society went there. I was totally flabbergasted when I found references in “The Great Gatsby.” Then I found out that people like Fredric March, George Hamilton, and a lot of other very famous males posed for Leyendecker. And then, of course, Leyendecker’s sexuality should have been very clear with his Interwoven Sock ads, which Beach posed for. When I first posted these images on Collectors Weekly, I said “I’m going to get into real trouble now” because you don’t debunk an idol. But this is not debunking; this is what he was.

Cleanliness is next to godliness: This atypical Ivory Soap advertisement from 1922 features a priest.

In his Ivory Soap commercials, there are these languid column-like figures, very statuesque pseudo-brothers or priests. This monk is holding up a bar of soap. The text reads, “Ivory Soap: It floats.” Since when do you use a man to sell soap? A friend of mine found a fascinating Internet posting called Leyendecker Studies, which included originals for both sides of the Kuppenheimer ad. In the Trojan warrior study, I noticed the helmet bore no crest. But in the finished Kuppenheimer advertisement for “Trojan Weave,” it does feature a crest, immediately below the word “Trojan.” While researching the history of Trojan condoms I found out they hit the market at the beginning of 1927. One detail caught my attention: the maker’s stated purpose to eschew overt or offensive sexual references, so the logo was to be a simple Trojan helmet, implying strength and protection. I looked for images of the packaging. Even today, a crested helmet is their logo! Therefore, it can be assumed that in 1927 Leyendecker changed his Trojan warrior’s helmet, adding the crest as a sly reference to the new latex condom that had just hit the market. Talk about semiotics and palimpsests. I’m amazed that this particular artist was able to get away with so much, as the foremost male image maker of the ’20s and ’30s. The American people swore by these images, and the Arrow Collar Man received fan letters by the ton from women. But the gays were probably petrified.

Some of Leyendecker’s most monumental works were for the Kuppenheimer clothing company. The men in this 1929 ad, all resembling Charles Beach, seem to be paying more attention to each other than their gorgeous mermaid friend.

Advertisement for Kuppenheimer's John Barrymore suits, 1927

Arrow ad, 1929

Arrow advertising, 1912

Collier's cover, 1916

Easter, 1936

Domenico Capriolo, Self Portrait, 1512, Oil on canvas, 117 x 85 cm, Hermitage Museum

Edward Steichen

Edward Steichen, 1907.  Photo taken by Heinrich Kuhn in his the new Innsbruck townhouse (1866-1944).  sotheby’s

‘Portrait of the artist John Singer Sargent’ by Italain painter Giovani Boldini.

Paul Cadmus

Paul Cadmus (December 17, 1904 – December 12, 1999) was an American artist. He is best known for his paintings and drawings of nude male figures. His works combined elements of eroticism and social critique to produce a style often called magic realism. He painted with egg tempera.

Cadmus was born on December 17, 1904 in New York City, the son of artists, Maria Latasa and Egbert Cadmus. His father worked as a commercial artist and his mother illustrated children's books.

National Academy of Design (1863-65), one of many Gothic Revivalbuildings modeled on the Doge's Palace, Venice

At age 15, Cadmus left school to attend the National Academy of Design for 6 years. He then enrolled at the Art Student League in 1928 taking life-drawing lessons while working as a commercial illustrator at a New York advertising agency.[4] He furthered his education while traveling through Europe from 1931 to 1933 with fellow artist, Jared French.

Luigi Lucioni (American, born Italy, 1900-1988). Paul Cadmus, 1928. Oil on canvas, 16 x 12 1/8 in. (40.6 x 30.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 2007.28.

After traveling through France and Spain, Cadmus and French settled In a fishing village on the island Mallorca. In 1933, they headed back to the United States after running out of money, where Cadmus was one of the first artists to be employed by The New Deal art programs, painting murals at post offices.

The Fleet's In!, 1934

In 1934, he painted The Fleet's In! while working for the Public Works of Art Project of the WPA. This painting, featuring carousing sailors, women, and a homosexual couple, was the subject of a public outcry and was removed from exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery. The publicity helped to launch his career.

Paul Cadmus and Jared French by PaJaMa

He worked in commercial illustration as well, but Jared French, another tempera artist who befriended him and became his lover for a time, convinced him to devote himself completely to fine art. In 1979, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full member in 1980.

Paul Cadmus and Jon Anderson his partner.

Jon Andersson, who became Cadmus's longtime companion of 35 years, was a subject of many of his works. The two met on a pier on Nantucket in 1964, when Andersson was twenty-seven and Cadmus was fifty-nine. "I never wanted to be with anyone else", Cadmus remarked. Thirty-six years later, at sixty-three and ninety-five, when Paul died, there were still together.

Paul Cadmus, The Haircut, 1986

In 1999, he died in his home in Weston, Connecticut due to advanced age, just five days shy of his 95th birthday. Cadmus's sister, Fidelma, was the wife of philanthropist and arts patron Lincoln Kirstein.

Andy Warhol by Tseng Kwong Chi, 1986.

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (2 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian Jewish painter and sculptor

William Bruce Ellis Ranken Part II

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William Bruce Ellis Ranken 1902

Well-born and educated at Eton, and eventually Slade, Ranken had an idyllic childhood living in vast estates in both Scotland and England. In 1907 he moved to Chelsea. This put Ranken in the milieu of the Edwardian aesthetes. Gay photographer Baron De Meyer and his wife, Olga, became close friends. He was mentored by gay artist John Singer Sargent.

Adolph de Meyer

Sargent, John SInger (1856-1925) - Self-Portrait 1907 

Of the artist's many patrons and friends, many were gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Some of those included composer Cole Porter; writer Violet Keppel Trefusis, the lover of Vite Sackville-West; Anne Morgan, daughter of the famous financer; decorator Elsie de Wolfe, Morgan's lover; the dynamic literary agent Elizabeth Marbury, also de Wolfe's lover; Henry Davis Sleeper, the collector; life-long companion and friend, actor Ernest Thesiger, who married Ranken's sister Janette at his behest; and most significantly, William Lygon, Earl Beauchamp, and his middle son, the Honorable Hugh Lygon, the model for Sebastian Flyte, the catalyst in Evelyn Waugh's most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited.

Self portrait 

William Bruce Ellis Ranken

Scottish painter William Bruce Ellis Ranken (1881–1941) photographed by Baron Adolph de Meyer, ca. 1907.

William Bruce Ellis Ranken (1881–1941) was an Edwardian aesthete, born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1881 to Robert Burk Ranken, a wealthy and successful lawyer, and his wife Mary. He attended Eton College and then proceeded to The Slade School of Art under the tutelage of Henry Tonks. A fellow student was the actor Ernest Thesiger, who became a lifelong friend; was painted by Ranken in 1918, and married Ranken's sister Janette in 1917.

1904

Ranken's first exhibition in 1904 at the Carfax Gallery in London was well-received by artists and art critics.

Isabella Stewart Gardner(1888), by John Singer Sargent.

He befriended Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn and John Singer Sargent. At the outbreak of World War One, William was living in his studio in Chelsea, a short distance from Sargent's studio, with whom he may have ventured to America during the war years.

Henri Matisse at work on ‘La Danse’, c. 1909.

Félicien Rops (1833-1898) Belgian artist and printmaker

John Singer Sargent. 1880s

Augustus John

Self-Portrait, 1901, Augustus John

Paul Victor Grandhomme

Paul Victor Grandhomme (1851-1944), was a French enamel painter and medallist

Art and Artist

Gay artist Oliver Messel in his studio, and gay 

British actor Peter Glenville, 

with his portrait done by Oliver.