Born in Florence of American parents, he studied there and in Paris. He settled in London, and was elected to the Royal Academy in 1897.

His output was prolific and highly fashionable in its day with its technical skill, and superficial brilliance.

Sargent's homosexuality is more in the studies of art historians than in documentation from his life.

It is known that he kept an album overstuffed with fhotographs of "primitive" male nudes.

His personal papers were destroyed by his family at his death and little is known abut the artist's 25-year relationship with Italian model, turned valet, Nicola d'Inverno.

Nicola d'Inverno

Tommies Bathing, 1918

Source: excerpts from: Aldrich R. & Wotherspoon G., Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History, from Antiquity to WWII, Routledge, London, 2001