John Singer Sargent’s best known work is the Portrait of Madame X(Not to be missed if you’re ever in NYC at the Met).  A couple lesser known, but important ones are at the Huntington.

This painting of a young man intrigued me most during my visit to the galleries even though it’s not mentioned in the catalog on line. It’s a seemingly tossed off quick painting by the artist, inscribed in large hasty letters “to my friend Forbes” and then his signature scratched in the paint about 1/4 of the way up from the bottom.  It reads as something of a hurried sketch, only done in paint.

Charles Stuart Forbes from JSSGallery

Forbe’s face is rendered by few strokes, not blended, layered, washed,or smoothed out.

I wish I’d captured the whole painting in my photo –  in it he’s actually tilted a bit as if Sargent caught him shifting in his seat, not posing.

I thought the painting quite literally outshone every other one in the room with its energy.