John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent was born in Florence to American parents, trained in Paris and became the leading society portrait painter of his age. After his portrait of Madame X caused a scandal at the Salon of 1884 he moved to London, living in Tite Street, Chelsea. His fluid brushwork suited portraits and watercolours alike, and Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, painted in the Cotswolds, is at Tate Britain. As a war artist in 1918 he painted Gassed, now in the Imperial War Museum, and he also made murals for the Boston Public Library.