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It seems hard to believe that my husband and I left Boston only two weeks ago, after our first visit to this historic city. We'd driven there from Greenville NY, after a five-day watercolour painting workshop with Brazilian artist Fabio Cembranelli hosted by Hudson River Art Workshops (HRVAW).
My sweetheart isn't an artist, so after breakfast each day in Greenville he'd head out to explore a different town or area nearby; historic sites, interesting cafés and shops, nature preserves, scenic waterfalls, whatever took his fancy.
That was his gift to me for our 30th anniversary. From Greenville, we drove across state lines to Boston on October 12, for my anniversary gift to him; a week mostly museum-hopping in Boston.
We enjoyed each of these weeks so much that we're already planning to return in 2026, when the same artist returns to HRVAW, with another week in Boston afterwards.
With one of my all-time favourite artists being John Singer Sargent (for his watercolous and landscape paintings rather than for his portraits), I was thrilled to see so many of his paintings in person.
The Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum was a treat, not only for Sargent’s massive El Jaleo oil painting, but also for several of his watercolour landscapes; I'll write more about these another day.
The MFAB or "Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, holds the most complete collection of John Singer Sargent’s art—paintings, murals, watercolors, drawings, and sculpture" as well as the John Singer Sargent Archive.
The Archive's collection includes "correspondence written by Sargent, photographs of the artist at work, estate papers, biographical information, and other personal papers related to the life and career of this exceptional artist. Highlights include fifteen letters written by Sargent to the French Impressionist painter Claude Monet, a letter of appreciation written in the hand of Amélie Gautreau (the subject of the painting known as Madame X), and letters written by Sargent’s sister Emily that contain details of Sargent’s activities over the course of many years."
Unfortunately these documents aren't on display, and the "John Singer Sargent Archive remains closed for in-person visits until further notice", but there is an entire gallery space in the Museum devoted to Sargent’s paintings.
Gallery 232 took my breath away, to be honest, with over 20 of his oil paintings - among them several of his enormous portraits of children.
"The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit" is a whopping square of 87.6 by 87.6 inches (or 7 feet, 3 inches), while "Helen Sears" was a slightly less breathtaking 65.86 inches by 35.98 inches (or almost 5 foot, 5 inches by 3 feet).
I was disappointed not to see more of his watercolour paintings on display, but at least I have the book "John Singer Sargent: Watercolors" from a joint exhibition in 2013-2014 of the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the MFAB.
And I have to admit that Sargent’s portraits are absolutely fabulous, particularly viewed in person, even if I prefer his watercolours and landscapes.