John Singer Sargent, January 12, 1856–April 14, 1925, was an American painter born in Florence to expatriate American parents. He received early art training in Florence, moved to Paris in 1874, passed the entrance examinations for the École des Beaux-Arts, and studied in the atelier of Carolus-Duran.

Sargent exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1877 and established an international career in portraiture before making London his principal base. He traveled frequently in Europe and the United States, maintained friendships with figures including Henry James and Robert Louis Stevenson, and never married.

After about 1907, Sargent reduced his portrait commissions and devoted more time to watercolor, landscape, and mural projects for the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He served as an official war artist in 1918 and died in London in 1925; principal collections of his work include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Tate, the National Gallery of Art, and the National Portrait Gallery, London.

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