Hirshler - Sargents Daughters

UNLIKE SARGENTS PAINTING, which was made over the course of only a few months, this book has taken many years to complete. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit has captivated me for more than thirty. I was a teenager when I first saw it at the MFA - a college freshman, only a couple of years older than the eldest girl who stands in the shadowy depths of the canvas and quite a bit younger than the artist who depicted her. Sargents daughters stayed with me, and I with them, through college, graduate school, internships, and curatorial positions. I have followed the painting as it moved from gallery to gallery within the museum and when it went on tour to other places. Once, as an eager young employee anxious to please the curator and the museums public relations photographer, I even dressed in a white pinafore and stood with one of the large vases that appear in the painting. It was an uncomfortable pose. How, I wondered, did it all come to happen?

Books and archives, conversations and coincidences have provided new information and insights. I have also simply looked - hard and over a long time. Two exhibitions and their accompanying catalogues gave me an opportunity to write about The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit in different ways, one in the context of Sargents portraits of children and the role they played in his career (Barbara Gallatis Great Expectations: John Singer Sargent Painting Children, at the Brooklyn Museum in 2004), and one in the context of Paris, the art capital of the nineteenth century and a magnet for both Sargent and the Boits (Americans in Paris, 1860-1900, with Kathleen Adler and H. Barbara Weinberg, at the National Gallery in London, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005-6). Both of those projects only whetted my appetite to learn more about this great painting, and I have continued to work on it ever since. I am not yet sated - a masterpiece always leaves one yearning - but the following pages do provide an abundant feast.

The responsibilities and demands of curatorial work are many, and thus it is with special gratitude that I thank Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Elliot Bostwick Davis, John Moors Cabot Chair, Art of the Americas, for giving me their encouragement and support - and the time - to pursue this project, which was unrelated to an exhibition or program. Mark Polizzotti, Director of Publications and Intellectual Property, was keen about my proposal from the beginning, and helped me to shape my ideas into a book that we hope will have both scholarly and popular appeal. Sarah McGaughey Tremblay was a gentle and encouraging editor, and my text has benefited enormously from her careful eye. The Vance Wall Foundation, Lynne and Frank Wisneski, and the Croll Fund for Research and Publications on American Paintings have provided critical support for this publication, and I am truly grateful to them for their generosity and commitment to scholarship.

I have been honored by the support of a circle of amazing women. Chief among them is Carol Wall, who has not only been an advocate, sharing my fascination with Sargent, his sitters, and the stories behind them, but also, with her husband Terry, a treasured friend. The late Lynne Wisneski began her Sargent odyssey with me in 1999; her interest and zest for exploring new places and ideas are deeply missed. Peggy Morrison gave me a great gift - her time - and her preliminary work with the Robert Boit diaries made my own path through them easier to follow. Elizabeth Mandel provided much-needed research assistance at a crucial moment. Deborah Davis and Deborah Weisgall both led by example.

I am indebted to a group whom I call, with great affection, the Sargent squad. Richard Ormond, Elaine Kilmurray, Elizabeth Oustinoff, and Warren Adelson, authors of the Sargent catalogue raisonn, have been incredibly generous with ideas, research materials, photographs, and their own infectious enthusiasm for all things Sargent. Marc Simpson assisted with the most arcane of inquiries and tried to keep me tethered to reality. Trevor Fairbrother, for whom I wore that pinafore so many years ago, made me think about Sargent in new, smart ways every time I opened one of his books. Kathy Adler helped me to keep in mind the international context of the artist and his sitters. Kathy, Richard, and Elaine all read early versions of my manuscript, for which they deserve not only gold stars for wading through muddy prose but sincere thanks for helping me to better shape my text. Any errors are mine, not theirs.

For answers to research queries, patience with my obsessions, skillful production assistance and design, and assistance in a variety of other ways, I would also like to thank: Marlowe Bergendoff, Isabelle Black, Sarah Cash, Cynara Crandall, John Davis, David Dearinger, Peter Drummey, Eleanor Dwight, Tara Elliott, Paul Fisher, Richard and Susan Flier, Isabelle and Dick Frost, Barbara Gallati, Bill Gerdts, Katie Getchell, Sandra Goroff, Nancy Whipple Grinnell, Barbara Hostetter, Gisela Jahn, Marrian Johnson, Rhona MacBeth, Terry McAweeney, Maureen Melton, Honor Moore, Jennifer Riley, Ellen Roberts, Carl W. Scarbrough, George T. M. Shackelford, Robert Sidorsky, Jodi Simpson, Ted Stebbins, Richard Virr, Barbara Weinberg, Francis H. Williams, Rosella Mamoli Zorzi, and some anonymous friends. I also am so grateful to my father, Eric Hirshler, who recognized my time constraints, offered encouragement, and helped me to read several letters and manuscripts.

I give heartfelt thanks and all my love to my husband, Harry, who not only willingly undertook the obligation of several research trips to Paris (!), but who also read and reread the manuscript, shopped and cooked, inspired and encouraged me, and gracefully put up with a wife who spent all too many weekends glued to a computer screen. This book simply would not have happened without him. I dedicate it to all the women whose lives, like those of Florie, Jeanie, Isa, and Julia Boit, have been obscured by the conventions of proper behavior and the shadows of art and history.

ERICA E. HIRSHLER
Croll Senior Curator of Paintings
Art of the Americas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Spring 2009