John Singer Sargent: Fashion and Swagger
2024 · 90 min · ★ 9.5 · Documentary
Filmed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Tate Britain, London, the exhibition reveals Sargent’s power to express distinctive personalities, power dynamics and gender identities during this fascinating period of cultural reinvention. Alongside 50 paintings by Sargent sit stunning items of clothing and accessories worn by his subjects, drawing the audience into the artist’s studio. Sargent’s sitters were often wealthy, their clothes costly, but what happens when you turn yourself over to the hands of a great artist? The manufacture of public identity is as controversial and contested today as it was at the turn of the 20th century, but somehow Sargent’s work transcends the social noise and captures an alluring truth with each brush stroke.
Directed by David Bickerstaff
Make it a double feature
3h 11m togetherBoth from David Bickerstaff.
Exhibition on Screen CollectionSee all →
Leonardo: From the National Gallery, London · 2012
Vermeer and Music · 2013
Munch 150 · 2013
Manet: Portraying Life · 2013
Matisse · 2014
The Impressionists: And the Man Who Made Them · 2015
Vincent Van Gogh: A New Way of Seeing · 2015
Girl with a Pearl Earring: And Other Treasures from the Mauritshuis · 2015
The Curious World of Hieronymus Bosch · 2016
Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse · 2016
Renoir: Reviled and Revered · 2016
Goya: Visions of Flesh and Blood · 2016
David Hockney at the Royal Academy of Arts · 2017
Canaletto & the Art of Venice · 2017
Michelangelo: Love and Death · 2017
The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism · 2017
I, Claude Monet · 2017
Cézanne: Portraits of a Life · 2018
Degas: Passion for Perfection · 2018
Rembrandt: From the National Gallery, London and Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam · 2018
Young Picasso · 2019
Leonardo: The Works · 2019
Lucian Freud: A Self Portrait · 2019
Van Gogh & Japan · 2019
Easter in Art · 2020
Frida Kahlo · 2020
Sunflowers · 2021
Raphael Revealed · 2021
The Danish Collector: Delacroix to Gauguin · 2021
Hopper: An American Love Story · 2022
Pissarro: Father of Impressionism · 2022
Mary Cassatt: Painting the Modern Woman · 2023
Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition · 2023
Tokyo Stories · 2023
Klimt & The Kiss · 2023
My National Gallery, London · 2024
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers · 2024
Dawn of Impressionism: Paris 1874 · 2025More from David BickerstaffSee all →
Making War Horse · 2009
Caravaggio · 2025
Canaletto & the Art of Venice · 2017
Sunflowers · 2021
Lucian Freud: A Self Portrait · 2019
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers · 2024
Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition · 2023
Girl with a Pearl Earring: And Other Treasures from the Mauritshuis · 2015
Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse · 2016
Michelangelo: Love and Death · 2017
Vincent Van Gogh: A New Way of Seeing · 2015
Pissarro: Father of Impressionism · 2022
Van Gogh & Japan · 2019
Heavy Water: A Film for Chernobyl · 2007
Turner & Constable · 2026
The Curious World of Hieronymus Bosch · 2016

