John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal

Ethel Barrymore 1879–1959

The American actress Ethel Barrymore hailed from a long line of theatrical performers. Her greatgrandmother began the family tradition in the mid-nineteenth century, and her grandniece Drew Barrymore sustains it today. Barrymore made her stage debut at the age of fourteen. Over six decades, her career evolved with the times to encompass film, radio, and television appearances. When the Actors’ Equity Association was founded in 1913, she became an ardent supporter. Fifteen years later, the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City was built and named in her honor.

Barrymore’s radiant stage presence captivated audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Winston Churchill proposed marriage; Sargent proposed a portrait. After seeing her perform in Boston in 1903, the artist wrote: “I would like to do a drawing of you, and I would be so honored to present you with the drawing afterward.” Barrymore agreed, later describing this charcoal portrait as “quite my most treasured possession.”

Charcoal on paper, 1903
Museum of the City of New York; gift of Samuel Colt, 1984

Ruth Draper as a Dalmatian Peasant

The American actress Ruth Draper (1884–1956) is credited with originating the now-familiar onewoman show. She wrote her own monologues and impersonations, both dramatic and comic, and gained fame in the United States and Europe. With few props, she carried out amazing feats of selftransformation. One eyewitness was impressed by her “remarkable ability to reproduce each and every emotion a human being can experience.”

Sargent first drew a conventional portrait of Draper in 1913. However, after seeing her perform, he told her, “Destroy my portrait. I want to draw you as one of your characters.” Here, Draper appears as a Dalmatian peasant in a New York hospital, one of her most famous monologue roles. The energetic lines convey the confidence that enabled Sargent to complete two drawings of the actress in just oneand-a-half hours. Refusing Draper’s offer of payment, he gave her this portrait as a token of his admiration.

Charcoal on paper, 1914
Museum of the City of New York; bequest of Ruth Draper, 1957

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, 1875–1942

As a visionary art patron and the founder of New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney is best known for her prescient endorsement of modernism in the visual arts. But she also championed modernism in music and was one of the earliest patrons of avant-garde music in New York City. In the 1910s, Whitney helped introduce European modernist music to American audiences through her support for French composer Edgard Varèse, the so-called “Father of Electronic Music.” She was the primary financial backer of his New Symphony Orchestra as well as the International Composer’s Guild, both of which promoted modern music.

Whitney’s musical inclinations are evident in this unusual drawing, in which she strikes a dancer’s pose. Her flared tunic and harem trousers were a favorite outfit. Commissioned from Léon Bakst, they resemble his costume designs for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

Charcoal and graphite on paper, c.1913
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York;
gift of Flora Miller Biddle, Pamela T. LeBoutillier, Whitney Tower, and Leverett S. Mille

Henry James 1843–1916

The American author Henry James is considered one of the greatest novelists in the English language. He spent most of his life abroad and frequently wrote about the culture clash between Americans and Europeans. After their first meeting in Paris in 1884, Sargent and James developed a close, lifelong friendship.

Another American expatriate, their mutual friend Edith Wharton, commissioned this drawing in 1911. James praised it as “a regular first class living, resembling, enduring thing.” Yet Sargent was dissatisfied, telling Wharton: “It has neither his grim expression, nor his amused one—and I shall not be surprised if you pronounce it a failure.” Rather than give the drawing to James, Sargent presented it to King George V for his portrait collection of recipients of the Order of Merit. A year later, in 1913, Sargent painted a portrait of James in oil to commemorate the author’s seventieth birthday.

Charcoal on paper, 1912
Lent by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth

William Butler Yeats 1865–1939

Arguably the greatest English-language poet of his generation, William Butler Yeats was deeply involved both in the Irish literary renaissance and the cause of Irish nationalism. This portrait was commissioned as the frontispiece to the first volume of Yeats’s Collected Poems, published in 1908. Fifteen years later, in 1923, Yeats received the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.”

Sargent’s drawing greatly pleased the poet, who described it as “a charming aerial sort of thing, very flattering as I think.” Yeats cultivated his appearance as a poet and an aesthete, confessing that he wore a velvet coat and bow tie “to remind himself of his own importance as an artist!” Sargent’s moody characterization helped burnish the poet’s image.

Charcoal on paper, 1908
Collection of Anne Peret

Sybil Sassoon, Marchioness of Cholmondeley 1894–1989

Sargent drew Sybil Sassoon when she was eighteen. That year, her father’s death brought her a vast fortune, derived in large part from the nineteenth century Sino-Indian opium trade. Months after coming into her inheritance, she married into the aristocratic Cholmondeley family and found her life’s purpose in restoring Houghton Hall. This masterpiece of Palladian architecture had descended through her husband’s family for several generations. Built in 1722 for England’s first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, Houghton had fallen into disrepair. Lady Cholmondeley therefore undertook an ambitious historical renovation project to restore its rooms to their eighteenth-century state.

During World War II, when the British Navy had a manpower shortage, Lady Cholmondeley advocated the recruitment of women to perform onshore work so men could go to sea. Following several years of service in the high command of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), she was appointed superintendent in 1945.

Charcoal on paper, 1912
Private collection

Daisy Fellowes 1890–1962

Daisy Fellowes took on the role of Paris editor for Harper’s Bazaar in 1933. By that time, she had reportedly launched more fashions than any other woman in the world and was renowned as “the most elegant and most talked-about woman in Paris.” Whatever she wore (or didn’t wear) instantly established a new trend, and even haute couture designers followed her lead.

Born Marguerite Séverine Philippine Decazes de Glücksberg—but always known as Daisy—the style icon was the daughter of a duke and an heir to the American Singer sewing machine fortune. Her fashion sense was daring and original, and she had a talent for making the most outrageous apparel appear effortlessly chic. She had a penchant for avant-garde design and frequently appeared in the surrealist fashions of Elsa Schiaparelli, who created the color “shocking pink” in her honor. Sargent’s portrait conveys a sense of the subject’s elegant allure.

Charcoal on paper, c.1920
Private collection, Columbus, Georgia

Double Self-Portrait

Notoriously reticent, Sargent disliked shining the spotlight on himself. Out of the 1,300 or more portraits in various media that he produced in his lifetime, he portrayed himself in only a half dozen or so. His claim that the process of making self-portraits “bored” him is symptomatic of his growing aversion to portraiture in general. After painting his last selfportrait in 1906 at the request of the Uffizi Museum in Florence, Sargent declared, “I have long been sick and tired of portrait painting, and while I was painting my own ‘mug’ I firmly resolved to devote myself to other branches of art as soon as possible.”

Sargent’s ongoing work in charcoal portraits proved to be the exception to that rule. In this drawing, Sargent experimented with two angles of representation, as if hinting at the impossibility of capturing the essence of a person in a single image.

Graphite on paper, 1902
Private collection, Columbus, Georgia

Gertrude Kingston 1862–1937

A woman of extraordinary versatility, Gertrude Kingston followed in Sargent’s footsteps by studying painting in Paris. In the early 1880s, she illustrated several children’s books before embarking on an acting career to support herself and her husband. Kingston’s success in both classic and contemporary dramas led George Bernard Shaw to write the title role of his play Great Catherine (1913) for her. In 1910, Kingston designed, built, and managed the Little Theatre in London, which used modern lighting technology. She displayed this striking portrait of herself in the lobby.

Deeply interested in politics, Kingston published articles on current issues and campaigned for women’s suffrage. During World War I, she co-founded the Women’s Emergency Corps to provide humanitarian aid to continental Europe and spent several years lecturing in the United States on the British war effort. In 1924, she contemplated standing for Parliament but returned to art instead, developing a new lacquerware technique.

Charcoal on paper, c.1909
By permission of the Provost and Fellows of King’s College, Cambridge, UK

Lady Helen Venetia Vincent 1866–1954

Lady Helen Vincent is shown here in the prime of her career as a magnetic political and intellectual hostess. A decade later, World War I brought a halt to her glittering lifestyle as a leading light of the Souls, the wife of a Conservative Member of Parliament, and “without doubt the most beautiful woman in England,” according to Cassell’s Magazine.

Fluent in several languages, Lady Helen worked as a wartime nurse in military hospitals in France and Italy. Observing a critical need for anesthetists, she sidestepped the requirement of a medical degree and embarked on a privately arranged course that allowed her to administer chloroform and ether, which she did successfully on more than a thousand occasions. After the war, as the wife of the British ambassador, she reorganized the British Embassy and Residence in Berlin as part of her diplomatic mission.

Charcoal on paper, c.1905
York Museums Trust (York Art Gallery), York, UK

Lady Diana Manners 1892–1986

High-spirited, beautiful, and eccentric, Lady Diana Manners was at the center of a coterie of young, intellectual aristocrats who dominated British social headlines in the years leading up to World War I. Most of her male friends died in battle while she and her female friends worked as nurses.

After the war, Lady Diana half-heartedly pursued a career in journalism before discovering a passion for acting. In the early 1920s, she starred in two of the earliest feature-length color films. However, she made her name in a multi-year, international tour of Max Reinhardt’s play The Miracle, in which she played a statue of the Virgin Mary that comes to life. She gained even greater acclaim in the role of diplomatic hostess, serving with distinction during her husband’s ambassadorship to France (1944–47). Her witty three-volume autobiography provides a unique perspective on the political and social events of her lifetime.

Charcoal on paper, 1914
Private collection

Ethel Grenfell, Lady Desborough 1867–1952

Few women of her generation were as wellconnected in political, literary, and artistic circles as Lady Desborough. Her polished charm and resolute good cheer attracted a “Who’s Who” of prominent public figures to her social gatherings, which were renowned for their lavishness. In this drawing, Sargent capitalized on Lady Desborough’s reputation as a glamorous hostess, showing her in formal evening attire with a diamond crescent moon ornamenting her hair.

Like other female members of the Souls, Lady Desborough was a voracious reader and largely selftaught. Her commitment to nonpartisan political discussion made her the trusted confidante of six successive prime ministers. She was also on intimate terms with the royal family, serving for many years in the household of Queen Mary. Her formidable executive skills even impressed the socialist Beatrice Webb, who remarked that she “ought to be the head of a great institution.”

Charcoal on paper, 1909
Trustees of the Firle Estate Settlement, Firle, East Sussex, UK

Moorfield Storey 1845–1929

Moorfield Storey was a leading civil rights attorney and an outspoken opponent of U.S. military intervention overseas. He served as president of the Anti-Imperialist League from 1905 until 1921 and as president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1909 until 1929. He also advocated for the rights of Native Americans and successfully brought cases before the Supreme Court concerning voting rights, residential segregation, and the prevention of lynchings and mob intimidation in criminal cases.

Storey famously declared, “One of the greatest dangers which threatens this country today is racial prejudice and it should be the duty of every person with any influence to discourage it.” Despite his serious purpose, Storey was not without humor, once joking that this charcoal portrait by Sargent might be considered “a fraud on the public, since it represents such an amiable old gentleman instead of a ferocious bruiser.”

Charcoal on paper, 1917
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; partial gift of James Moorfield Storey

Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother 1900–2002

This sensitive portrait captures Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon on the threshold of a new life. She sat for Sargent just weeks before marrying Prince Albert, Duke of York, second son of King George V and Queen Mary. Unsure that she was suited for public life, Lady Elizabeth refused the prince at least three times before finally accepting his proposal. He unexpectedly became King George VI upon his brother’s abdication in 1936, and she endeared herself to the British public by her courage and compassion during the Second World War.

Sargent was commissioned to make drawings of Lady Elizabeth and Prince Albert as gifts for the couple’s wedding in April 1923. The artist later declared Lady Elizabeth to be “the only completely unselfconscious sitter I ever had,” in marked contrast to her notoriously shy and nervous husband. After George VI died in 1952, she assumed the role of Queen Mother when her daughter Elizabeth II ascended to the throne.

Charcoal on paper, 1923
Lent by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I

Kenneth Grahame 1859–1932

Kenneth Grahame is best known as the author of the beloved children’s classic The Wind in the Willows, which he published to immediate international acclaim in 1908. That was the same year that he took early retirement, at the age of forty-nine, from the Bank of England. He had worked there since he was twenty, quickly rising through the ranks to become secretary of the bank. During most of that time, Grahame wrote on the side, publishing his short stories in collections such as Dream Days (1898), which includes “The Reluctant Dragon.”

This portrait was commissioned as a gift for Grahame’s wife by her sister, who was herself an artist. Sargent lamented, “I am sorry it looks older than he does, on account of the strong light and shade—but something is gained by that in the way of modeling.”

Charcoal on paper, 1912
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, UK; bequest of Elspeth Grahame, 1947

Eleonora Sears 1881–1968

Eleonora Randolph Sears refused to comply with the limitations placed on women’s behavior. She was arrested for smoking in public and condemned as “immodest” for wearing trousers. She made her most decisive mark as a groundbreaking athlete, participating in nineteen sports ranging from figure skating to boxing to football. Having garnered as many as 240 athletic trophies, she was especially adept at racket sports. Sears won the U.S. doubles tennis championship four times between 1911 and 1917 and became the first female national squash champion in 1928. In April of that year, she made one of her numerous long-distance walks between Newport, Rhode Island, and her home in Boston, covering seventy-four miles in sixteen hours despite pouring rain.

Upon her death, the Boston Globe proclaimed Sears as “probably the most versatile performer that sports has ever produced—not just the most versatile female performer, but the most versatile, period.”

Charcoal on paper, 1921
Private collection, Columbus, Georgia