The 'Earnest, Untiring Worker' and the Magician of the Brush: Gender Politics in the Criticism of Cecilia Beaux and John Singer Sargent

Abstract

When Cecilia Beaux exhibited Sita and Santa (Fig. 1) in the 1895 Society of American Artists show in New York, one reviewer wrote that despite the risk of seeming 'over-enthusiastic' should one claim that Beaux painted as well as John Singer Sargent, nonetheless, 'I am going to say that I don't see how even Mr Sargent could paint a portrait with more distinction than that of the woman with a black cat