Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.

The Artist Sketching

John Singer Sargent American

Not on view

Dwight Blaney (1865–1944) was an American landscape painter, naturalist, and important collector of American antiques. Sargent and Blaney met when the former was working on his murals for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Blaney invited Sargent to escape the city’s summer heat at his home on Ironbound Island, Maine. Sargent found the remoteness and solitude of the sparsely populated island conducive to painting.
Blaney is shown perched atop a rock outcropping poised to work at his easel. Sargent uses brilliant blue highlights throughout the composition to suggest effects of light and shadow. In this work, Sargent’s fluid handling of oil paint evokes his watercolor technique. The amazing gnarled fallen tree trunk compresses the painting’s depth and is a focal point of the composition.

The Artist Sketching, John Singer Sargent (American, Florence 1856–1925 London), Oil on canvas, American

This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Open Access

As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.

API

Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.