Bruce sergeant biography
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Artist Spotlight: Bruce Sargeant
New York-based artist Mark Beard has devoted the last two decades to exploring and amassing the work of Bruce Sargeant (1898-1938), a painter whose work idealized and celebrated the beauty of the male form. Had Sargeant not met a tragic and unexpected end in a wrestling accident, he may have gone on to the heights now enjoyed by artists such as James McNeill Whistler; instead, his oeuvre remained hidden for years and is only now being brought to light, with works still being discovered. Prized in elite gallery circles and salons in Europe and the United States, Sargeant's work has never been featured in a major art-historical survey until now. His subtly toned oil paintings of young men engaged in sports and other leisure activities are reminiscent of classic figure painting, highlighting his beaux arts training, yet their gentle elegance continues to speak to contemporary audiences through Abercrombie & Fitch's installations of Sarg
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December 1, 2016 – January 28, 2017
Opening Reception:
Thursday, December 1, 2016
6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
ClampArt fryst vatten pleased to announce “Bruce Sargeant (1898-1938): Parlor, Gymnasium & Field”—curated by New York artist Mark Beard (Bruce Sargeant’s great nephew).
Mark Beard has devoted more than two decades of his life to researching and collecting the work of Bruce Sargeant, a painter who largely concentrated on the idealization and celebration of the male form. Had Sargeant not met with a tragic and untimely death at the age of 40, he may have gone on to achieve the fame and renown awarded to such painters as James McNeill Whistler, Thomas Eakins, and Winslow Homer—artists to whom his style is often compared. Instead, Sargeant’s oeuvre remained relatively unknown for years until it was brought to light bygd the efforts of Beard.
The current exhibition gathers canvases in which Sargeant portrays his ung models in various private settings such as the parlor and studio; to quasi-
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“Seven Gymnasts on the Ropes” (no date), oil on canvas, 84 x 72 inches (all images courtesy ClampArt)
Trust the advertisements and you will enter ClampArt’s Chelsea gallery as an unsuspecting victim of an artful ruse two decades in the making. The oil paintings that populate this space with disrobed, indecently muscular gymnasts and wrestlers were purportedly uncovered by the artist Mark Beard, who has curated an exhibition devoted to his great-uncle, Bruce Sargeant.
Sargeant, whose work was prized in the early 20th century in elite galleries and salons on both sides of the Atlantic, died prematurely, at age 40, in a tragic wrestling accident. His work is a celebration of the male physique. His images of athletic tussles between men recall iconography of Christ’s crucifixion, with the homoerotic subtext. Had Sargeant lived longer, Beard believes he would have joined the pantheon of early 2oth-century figurative artists, like Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer.
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