VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Encounter five exhibitions by four intriguing artists during "An American Season" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The work of Maurice Prendergast, John Singer Sargent, Alice Neel, and Charles M. Russell comes together in a uniquely American gathering of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and more. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) presents the exhibition Sargent and the Sea (Part of An American Season), on view Sunday, February 14 - Sunday, May 23, 2010 at the Audrey Jones Beck Building. 

American expatriate artist John Singer Sargent (1856—1925) is best known for his glamorous society portraits, and much of his art has been well documented in exhibitions and publications. Sargent and the Sea is the first to examine the little-explored maritime paintings and drawings that Sargent produced in various locales during the first five years of his career.

Comprised of an intimate selection of 36 oil paintings, 23 drawings and watercolors, and one scrapbook—all drawn from a wide range of public and private collections in the U.S. and Europe—the exhibition centers on Sargent´s two well-known pictures from this period—Setting Out to Fish and Fishing for Oysters at Cancale—and several related studies. In addition, Sargent and the Sea showcases recent discoveries of several important seascapes and features many rarely exhibited works in watercolor and pen-and-ink that reveal Sargent´s artistic process, his passion for the sea, and his expert knowledge of seafaring.

The presentation´s companion catalogue, published by Yale University Press, includes art historical essays by noted Sargent scholars. Following its premiere at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Sargent and the Sea is curated in Houston by Emily Ballew Neff, MFAH Curator of American Painting and Sculpture. After the Houston presentation, the show travels to the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Pictured:  John Singer Sargent, Seascape, c. 1876, Oil on canvas.