Accompanying a major exhibition, this is the first book devoted to the career of this renowned American painter through his brilliant portraits. John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was one of the leading painters of his generation, whose captivating portraits are universally admired for their insight into character, radiance of light and color, and painterly fluency and immediacy. This unprecedented book showcases Sargent's cosmopolitan career in a new light--through his bold portraits of artists, writers, actors, and musicians, many of them his close friends--giving us a picture of the artist as an intellectual and connoisseur of the music, art, and literature of his day. Whether depicted in well-appointed interiors or en plein air, the cast of characters includes many famous subjects, among them Claude Monet, Auguste Rodin, Gabriel Fauré, Vaslav Nijinsky, W. B. Yeats, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Henry James. Structured thematically and according to the places Sargent worked and lived--Paris, London, New York, Italy, and the Alps--this book unites informative essays by noted scholars with a wealth of imagery to offer fresh insights into Sargent's life and work.