John Singer Sargent

The American painter John Singer Sargent was born in Florence, Italy, and grew up in the cultural capitals of Europe, thanks to his parents, who left Philadelphia for a nomadic, expatriate life abroad. Exposed to European art and culture from birth, Sargent attended art schools wherever he was living and developed into a consummate cosmopolitan, evident in his portrait commissions of social elites, first in Paris and then in England and the United States.