Boston's Apollo - by Nathaniel Silver (Hardcover)

Number of Pages: 256
Genre: Art
Sub-Genre: Individual Artists
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Age Range: Adult
Book theme: Monographs
Author: Nathaniel Silver
Language: English

About the Book

"In 1916, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) met Thomas Eugene McKeller (1890-1962), a young Black elevator attendant, at Boston's Hotel Vendome. McKeller posed for most of the figures--both male and female--in Sargent's murals in the Museum of Fine Arts. The painter transformed McKeller into white gods and goddesses, creating soaring allegories of the liberal arts that celebrated the recent expansion of the city's premier civic museum. Sargent then gave the preparatory drawings of McKeller to Isabella Stewart Gardner, ensuring their preservation in perpetuity. Displayed together for the first time, the drawings provide a window into the metamorphoses of race, gender, and identity, and attest to a relationship between two men, artist and model, at a time of intense social upheaval. This exhibition brings together Sargent's drawings and related historical materials to tell the story of McKeller's life. His central importance in Sargent's major artistic commissions in the Boston area considers critical questions of race, class, and sexuality--as relevant today as they were in Gilded Age Boston"

Book Synopsis

The story of the extraordinary collaboration behind one of John Singer Sargent's renowned late masterpieces

In 1916, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) met Thomas Eugene McKeller (1890-1962), a young African American elevator attendant, at Boston's Hotel Vendome. McKeller became the principal model for Sargent's murals in the new wing of the city's Museum of Fine Arts, among the painter's most ambitious works. Sargent's nude studies and sketches from this project attest to a close collaboration between the two men that unfolded over nearly ten years. Featuring drawings given by Sargent to Isabella Stewart Gardner and published in full for the first time, a portrait of McKeller, and archival materials reconstructing his life and relationship with Sargent, this book opens new avenues into artist-model relationships and transforms our understanding of Sargent's iconic American paintings. Essays offer the first biography of McKeller and a window onto African American life in early-20th-century Boston. They also address the artist's sexuality, his models, and questions of race and identity.

Review Quotes

"an excellent book."--Holland Cotter, New York Times

About the Author

Nathaniel Silver is William and Lia Poorvu Curator of the Collection at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.