Robert Sterling as a collector of Sargent - works of painter John Singer Sargent in Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute

Magazine Antiques, Oct, 1997 by Marc Simpson

By the end of 1942 Clark owned twelve oils by Sargent (more than by any other artist except Pierre Auguste Renoir [1841-1919] and Alfred Stevens [1823-1906]), one watercolor, and one drawing [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. He had a decided bias toward the artist's early career - all but one of the Sargent paintings predate 1885, when the painter was still in his twenties. Clark also preferred offs to watercolors, figural subjects to landscapes, and the small and informal to the large and studied.(9) To a degree these choices reflect the pragmatic limits of the collection, formed initially for private enjoyment in the Clarks' residences in New York City, Paris, and Upperville, Virginia. But they also demonstrate a consistent aesthetic that Sargent's works readily satisfy: vivid brushwork that magically coalesces into scenes of startling veracity. Through his actions and words Clark repeatedly affirmed his belief that Sargent, along with Winslow Homer, was among "the best American artists"(10) - a belief that is magnificently borne out by the collection at the Clark Art Institute.

1 The fullest treatment of the American paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in williamstown, Massachusetts, is the exemplary catalogue by Margaret C. Conrads, American Paintings and Sculpture at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (Hudson Hills Press, New York, 1990).

2 Clark eventually came to feel that the blurring of the face was a fault, writing in his diaries on February 15, 1943, about a Degas painting: "Found the same fault of face not well enough done in one of the women in my Sargent 'Venetian Interior with Lace makers' & had for many years" (Robert Sterling Clark diaries [archives of the Clark Art Institute]). I would like to thank David S. Brooke, director emeritus of the Clark Art Institute, for sharing his transcript of the diaries with me.

3 Venetian Lacemakers (also entitled Venetian Lace Workers) of 1887 is now in the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio; Venetian Beadstringers of 1887 is now in a private collection.

4 Clark diaries, April 19, 1923.

5 Clark was extremely sensitive to the appeal of the portrait's subject. He recorded the impressions of a visitor to his collection: "Mrs. Keating of San Antonio .... loved the Sargent portrait of Carolus Durand. All the women fall for Carolus even his portrait. What must it have been in real life?" (Clark diaries, February 10, 1929).

6 One cluster of diary entries occurred when Sargent's drawing after the painting (made to assist the reproduction included in the livret for the Paris Salon of 1880) came onto the New York auction market in 1942. "Francine & I went to see the exhibition of Esther slater Kerrigan Coll. before sale... I found 5 or 6 drawings which I wanted at a price - Among them a pen & ink small drawing by Sargent of the 'Fumee de l'Ambergris' possibly his first idea of my picture for the Salon of 1883 [sic] - the Gardner Museum has a finished watercolor of it" (Clark diaries, January 6, 1942); "To Scott & Fowles - Scott bought the Sargent pen & ink 'Fumee de l'Ambergris'" (Clark diaries, January 9, 1942); Clark eventually purchased the drawing from Scott and Fowles. Clark used the oil painting as a point of comparison when observing other works by Sargent, particularly those from the late 1870s and early 1880s that depict women in exotic locales, and occasionally when viewing works by other artists. See, for example, Clark's diary entries for May 24, 1928; November 22, 1933: and February 7, 1939.