Sargent and Paris and the Gilded Age

American expatriate artist John Singer Sargent’s notorious painting Madame X (a portrait of the glamorous socialite Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau), exhibited at the Salon of 1884, takes pride of place in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s current exhibition Sargent and Paris.  Beginning with his formative years in Carolus-Duran’s studio and ending with the aftermath of the moment he scandalized “toute Paris,” art historian Beth S. Gersh-Nesic will contextualize Sargent’s early career, including works by other artists who influenced this precocious genius (1856-1925).    

Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, PhD, is an art historian and the director of the New York Arts Exchange, an arts educational service.  Known for her publications on Picasso, Cubism, the École de Paris, and the poet/critic André Salmon, she also taught numerous courses on American art and late 19th century art movements to her undergraduate students at Purchase College, Mercy University, NYU, and the College of New Rochelle.  She has been contributing articles on art history to Bonjour Paris since 2016.  Her most recent publications are translations for Za Mir Press:  Pablo Picasso and André Salmon: The Painter, the Poet and the Portraits (2019); Pablo Picasso, André Salmon and “Young French Painting” (2022); and Ayan Before Midnight by Jean-Luc Pouliquen (2024).