Born January 12, 1856 in Florence, Italy to American parents, Sargent lived a vagabond childhood, traveling throughout Europe with his parents. In 1874 he went to Paris to study painting.

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A trip to Madrid in 1879 inspired the masterpiece of his youth, El Jaleo (1882). In somber colors reminiscent of Velázquez and Goya, El Jaleo depicts the passion and sensuality of flamenco dance and music.

Earthy and exotic, it created a scandal when it was exhibited, establishing a pattern whereby Sargent earned fame (and occasionally infamy) by shocking the artistic establishment and the social arbiters of his day.

Controversy followed other early portraits, such as that of gynecologist Dr. Samuel Jean Pozzi at Home (1881).

The famous full-length portrait of New Orleans beauty Virginie Gautreau (1884) brought Sargent notoriety. Considered ostentatious and brazen, the portrait of Madame Gautreau in a strapless black gown with a plunging neckline was eviscerated by the critics as scandalous.

From a contemporary perspective, it is particularly noteworthy as a depiction of a sexually aware and desiring woman and as a comment on Parisian social pretensions. Sargent eventually changed the title to Portrait of Madame X to protect the sitter.

To escape the scandal created by the Portrait of Madame X, in 1886 Sargent moved to London, where paintings such as Carnation, Lily, Lilly, Rose (1885-1886) and Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1892-1893) triumphed at the Royal Academy and where he established a brilliant career as a society and celebrity portraitist.

Because of his ability to capture the essence of male power and female beauty without superficiality, Sargent is considered by some to be "vanity's butler" for making everyone appear dashing and beautiful.

However, Sargent's work is often unsparingly candid, depicting his sitters' insecurity and awkwardness as well as their beauty and power. The delicate brushwork, nuanced color, and ingenious use of setting make his portraits uniquely vibrant and alive.

Although Sargent's portraits sold for high prices and made his career, the assembly line nature of the work increasingly dissatisfied him. From 1900 to 1907, he painted from 15 to 25 portraits per year.

After painting over 700 portraits, he dedicated his last years to producing large murals for the Boston Public Library, the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, and Harvard University, as well as numerous watercolors. These works remain largely unrecognized.

Critics frequently comment on the tension between respectability and sensuality in Sargent's work, especially his ability to suggest the transgressive without actually violating social proprieties. Many find the same tension in Sargent's personal life.

Although he had many friends, including Henry James and Robert Louis Stevenson, and associated with aesthetes and dandies such as Oscar Wilde and Robert de Montesquiou, Sargent was known as distant and reserved. He had no great romantic attachments, only flirtations with women and deep friendships with men.

Rumors circulated about his relationship with his long-time model and assistant Nicola d'Inverno, but no physical liaison of any kind has been documented. At his death, his family destroyed his personal papers, so the evidence for Sargent's homosexuality resides largely in his work, especially his genre paintings and male nudes.

American art historian Trevor J. Fairbrother believes that Sargent's drawings of the male nude show that Sargent had homosexual leanings. Gently erotic with an unabashed attention to genitalia, these were never exhibited.

Also of note is an early portrait that evokes a homosexual sensibility, W. Graham Robertson (1894), in which a slender 28-year-old dandy, dressed in a smoking jacket, stands in a provocative pose, while an elderly poodle rests on the floor.

One of his most beautiful works is Nude Study of Thomas E. McKeller (1917-1920). Found in his studio at his death, this oil painting of one of Sargent's favorite models, legs sprawled and eyes raised, challenges interpretation.

Also surprisingly erotic is the unfinished Boston Public Library mural Triumph of Religion (1890-1919), which features numerous images of young male bodies.

After a life filled with honors and prizes, Sargent died on April 15, 1925 in London. His grave stone inscription reads "to work is to pray."

In nineteenth-century America men who loved other men often suffered from guilt, but artists such as Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins celebrated male camaraderie and affection, while expatriate John Singer Sargent depicted the dandy, and photographs documented male friendships.

Several artists and art critics of the nineteenth century achieved a self-aware homosexual identity that is expressed in both their lives and their works, but lesbianism is only rarely depicted in terms of identity during this period.

Patronage--the sponsorship of artists and the commissioning of artistic projects from them--is of central importance to cultural history.

While nude depictions of women appear in most cultures, on both sides of the equator, and in rich variety, lesbian artists have been particularly resourceful in their use of the female nude.

Throughout much of history, the nude male figure was virtually the only subject that could be used to articulate homoerotic desire in publicly displayed works of art, as well as those works of art intended for private "consumption."

Though closeted, Henry James had a number of intimate relations with young men, and his sexual orientation imbued his fiction.

British artist Henry Scott Tuke created works that celebrate the beauty of male youth, as well as the artist's lifelong love of the sea, swimming, and sailing.

Oscar Wilde is important both as an accomplished writer and as a symbolic figure who exemplified a way of being homosexual at a pivotal moment in the emergence of gay consciousness.