Hercules
Brabazon Brabazon
John
Singer Sargent
-- American painter
1900
National
Museums and
Galleries of Wales,
Cardiff
Oil on
canvas
56.5 x
40.6 cm
Acquired
1963; Bequest;
Margaret Davies
Accession
Number NMW
A 179 [1]
Jpg: nmgw.ac.uk
Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
1893
Hercules
Brabazon Brabazon
(1821-1906) was an Irish/English watercolorist who came to it
professionally
at a late age -- though he had been a gentleman artist for many years
previously.
He held his first one-man exhibition at the Goupil Gallery in 1892 at
the
age of 71 quickly became a sensation with works such as "The
Pink Palace".
Sargent, Philip Wilson Steer, and
D. S. MacColl, his friends from the New
English Art Club, were all wildly supportive of this "new kid's"
first
solo exhibition. Sir
Frederick Wedmore described him as being: 'A country gentleman, who at seventy
years old made his
debut as a professional artist, and straightaway became famous.'
Although thirty
years older than
Sargent, the two shared a lot in common and they became good
friends.
Brabazon first exhibited at the New
English Art Club in '91. He was raised in France, developed a love
of music and traveled widely spending his summers in the Riviera and
traveled
through North Africa and the Middle East.
To
put into perspective the affection Sargent had for this man and the
painting -- this was in Sargent's personal collection
when he died in 1925 - twenty-five years after it was painted.[1]
Brabazon's watercolors,
such as "Fondamenta
della Salute" and "Venice (3)"
showed the deftness
of what Whistler had done and in many ways the same sort of things
Sargent himself
was
doing. Sargent admired him greatly and at the time of his own death
held
works by Brabazon in his own collection.
Born Hercules
Brabazon Sharpe, the
youngest of two sons from an Irish aristocratic family which held
estates
in both Ireland and Britain he was able to enjoy a life of the
intellect,
arts and leisure. Upon the early death of his older brother ('47)
and
then his father in '58 when he was thirty-seven years old, he inherited
the title and fortune of the
family
and became Hercules Brabazon Brabazon.
Early on, after his
father brought
the family back to England, he studied watercolors at Harrow and then
mathematics
at Trinity College.
When
Sargent paints him, Hecules would have been 79 years old.
Notes:
Bio notes
1)
Provenance
Margaret Davies purchased this painting from the Sargent's studio sale
after his death in 1925, then she bequest
it to the National
Museums and Galleries of Wales,1963
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