The Musée d'Orsay is presenting a groundbreaking exhibition celebrating the centenary of John Singer Sargent's death, marking the first major monographic exhibition dedicated to the American master in France. "John Singer Sargent: Dazzling Paris" runs through January 11, 2026, showcasing nearly 90 paintings that trace the artist's formative Parisian years from his arrival in the capital to his departure for London following a resounding scandal.

This major retrospective, co-produced with New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art where it was previously presented in April, aims to reintroduce French audiences to an artist who remains largely forgotten in France despite being celebrated in England and the United States as one of the greatest painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nearly half a million visitors flocked to the Met to admire his works, demonstrating the enduring appeal of Sargent's artistry.

"This is the first time a major monographic exhibition has been dedicated to Sargent in France," celebrates Paul Perrin, one of the curators and chief curator at the Musée d'Orsay. "It brings together a large part of his masterpieces," he explains, noting that most of the 90 works had never returned to France. However, Perrin warns that "Sargent's painting is not easily categorizable. It's not quite Impressionism, not quite Academicism. He's a great portraitist but not only that. We see this in the exhibition with his landscapes and travel scenes."

Surprisingly, Sargent depicted Paris itself very little during his time there. Searching carefully through the exhibition walls, visitors will find only two paintings of the city: "In the Luxembourg Gardens," a very Impressionist-style painting from 1879 that is not necessarily characteristic of his manner, and "Rehearsal of the Pasdeloup Orchestra at the Cirque d'Hiver" (circa 1879-1880). Instead, as Paul Perrin explains, "The exhibition rather paints the portrait of a capital through the people who made artistic life in that period - the portrait of a generation of writers, art critics, artists, students..." This approach is evident in works like the "Portrait of Vernon Lee," depicting the writer who was Sargent's childhood friend.

Sargent was the son of a surgeon, born to well-to-do Americans from the East Coast who had left Philadelphia after the death of their first child to settle in Europe in 1854. Their son was born two years later in Italy, in Florence, a city entirely dedicated to the arts. "He was someone steeped in culture who always referred to the old masters. He traveled with his parents throughout his childhood and made copies in museums," explains Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, co-curator of the exhibition. "He was a cosmopolitan artist who lived between several continents," adds Paul Perrin. While his portraits of English aristocracy made him famous, he also painted in North Africa, Capri, and Brittany, as revealed in one of the exhibition's most beautiful rooms, which houses a gem from the United States: the canvas "Fumée d'ambre gris" (Smoke of Ambergris) with its white-on-white effects.

In May 1874, John Sargent's parents settled in Paris so he could continue his painting training. The young man, then 18 years old, joined the studio of Carolus-Duran, a portraitist highly appreciated in high society. In parallel, the apprentice painter took and passed the École des Beaux-Arts competition three times, even reaching second place in 1877. Sargent befriended several artists, notably Claude Monet. He was brilliant and quickly began to "dazzle Paris."

"All the works presented in the exhibition were executed within ten years, before he turned 30," marvels Caroline Corbeau-Parsons. "His style reached maturity as soon as he left Carolus-Duran's studio, from 1867. It's quite phenomenal, for an artist of his age, to see such an established technique so early." Sargent sent canvases to the Salon, notably a "Portrait of M. Carolus-Duran," his mentor. "He was noticed right away for his portraits but also for genre scenes like 'En route pour la pêche' (Going Fishing)," she emphasizes.

What characterizes Sargent's technique? "It's fluid, quite thick, and he uses rather long brushes," responds Paul Perrin. "There's suppleness and brilliance in his brush handling and a love of material." He notes that some paintings are "extremely sketched" like the superb "Dr. Pozzi at Home," even though Sargent worked on larger formats than the Impressionist painters. "He has incredible freedom of touch. Where he doesn't go as far as the Impressionists, because it doesn't interest him, is in light," he nuances. "He's an artist attached to shadow, while with the Impressionists, everything is light. Sargent's artistic lineage means he loves to play with shadow, with beautiful nuances and transparency effects. He's no less innovative than the Impressionists; he's interested in something else."

The final rooms of the exhibition are truly dazzling, featuring very large format canvases that perfectly illustrate the virtuosity and prodigious talent of the young painter. "During this Parisian period, he tried completely new things," decodes Caroline Corbeau-Parsons. "His portraits pushed all the conventions of the time. He played notably with scales. He also had a taste for the bizarre and a very strange aesthetic. His technique allowed him to capture the psychology of his models." This is striking when observing the assembled portraits of the family of Édouard Pailleron, a playwright in vogue at the time. Instead of representing this man in a black and strict suit, as was customary at the time, John Sargent gave his model a bohemian side and a freer pose.

Near "Madame Pailleron," represented full-length, the exhibition presents a very large, intriguing painting of their two children. Young Marie-Louise clearly did not appreciate the multiple posing sessions imposed by the master and looks at us with an unfriendly expression. The canvas emanates a feeling of unease, far from the innocence and candor of childhood. With its shadow and light effects and original composition, "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit," another large painting from 1882 inspired by Velázquez's "Las Meninas," gives the same impression of vaguely disturbing strangeness. To adopt a contemporary reference, these portraits could have served as models for the twins in Stanley Kubrick's film "The Shining."

Writer Henry James wrote in 1887 that Sargent's painting "offers the strangely disturbing spectacle of a talent that, at the threshold of its career, has already nothing left to learn." He saw in it "the freshness of youth combined with the artistic experience, really felt and assimilated, of the generations [that preceded him]." This precocious know-how earned him multiple commissions from wealthy American expatriates and French aristocrats. The American penetrated the worldly, literary, and artistic circles of the dying century.

His canvases required long months of preparation and work, as realized with "Madame X," his most famous painting, painted in 1883 and 1884. "Our First Lady," smiles Caroline Corbeau-Parsons. "It's Virginie Gautreau, the wife of a very prominent banker," explains Stephanie L. Herdrich, curator of American paintings at the Met, "an American-born woman who had a reputation in Paris. Sargent found her fascinating and asked her to pose for him." The painter wanted to create a painting that would matter, an icon of the modern Parisian woman. "They collaborated a lot for this portrait," explains the expert. "They met many times. She validated all his choices, and when the portrait was finished, she wrote to one of her friends that Sargent had produced a masterpiece."

The exhibition presents multiple sketches made by the painter for this canvas. "He was obsessed with the idea of capturing her beauty and even lived at her house for six to eight weeks to finish this portrait," recounts the Met specialist. Presented at the 1884 Salon, this full-length portrait caused an enormous scandal. "On opening day, people were grouped in front of this canvas, very shocked. They criticized the model less than the painter, saying she looked like a dead woman with her too-white skin," she adds. It's said that Virginie Gautreau's mother personally knocked on the painter's door to ask him to remove from the Salon this portrait that risked ruining her daughter's reputation.

Sargent defended himself by explaining that he had painted her exactly as she was dressed. In the original version, one of Madame X's straps fell down her shoulder. This small detail became the crux of the scandal. "They found her provocative and began to question her morality," decodes the expert. Sargent refused to take down his large portrait, but at the end of the Salon, he brought it back to his studio and repainted the strap in its proper place, on his model's shoulder. Some saw this as capitulation, but the painter remained very proud of this portrait that he kept with him all his life, transporting it from studio to studio, before selling it to the Met in 1916, one year after Virginie Gautreau's death. When giving it to the great New York museum, he declared: "I suppose it's the most beautiful thing I've ever done."

It's often said that this scandal pushed Sargent to leave Paris to settle in London in June 1884. The exhibition curators nuance this theory, assuring that he had this project even before finishing the portrait of Madame X. Encouraged by Henry James, he thought the English capital would offer him numerous opportunities, which proved correct. His ties with French artists, notably Claude Monet, continued well after he left Paris. Until the day of his death on April 14, 1925, the American remained deeply attached to France. A symbolic gesture testifies to this: "We owe to Monet and Sargent the purchase of the painting 'Olympia' for French public collections. It was they who organized the fundraising that allowed this canvas to enter public collections after Manet's death," concludes Paul Perrin - a painting that had itself caused scandal in Paris.