John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), the greatest painter of his generation and one of the best portraitists in art history, is having a moment. The exhibition Sargent & Paris is drawing crowds at New Yorks Metropolitan Museum of Art, and he has a cameo appearance in the new season of The Gilded Age.In the show, the scheming Mrs. Russell (Carrie Coon) commissions Sargent (Bobby Steggert) to paint a portrait of her daughter, Gladys (Taissa Farmiga), hoping it will help secure the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb) as a suitor. Though entirely fictional, the scenario is pitch-perfect. In an era marked by extreme wealth and social ambition, Sargents models used his portraits to assert their social standing, making him the official image-maker of the elite.What distinguished Sargents work wasnt just his technical brilliance but his uncanny ability to capture the sitters souls with a theatrical flair that makes them timeless.Born in Florence to American expatriate parents, Sargent lived between Italy, France, England, and the United States, all of which turned him into a permanent outsider. A recent documentary about the artist, Fashion & Swagger, addresses the elephant in the room among art historians, Sargents sexuality. A lifelong bachelor, the film explores the queer markers in Sargents work, from his fascination with strong women, to how he chose the sitters attires and then manipulated them to heighten drama, to his depiction of male subjects with, at times, effeminate, gestures.His close friend Jacques-mile Blanche once remarked that Sargents gay life in Paris and Venice was positively scandalous. But if Sargent were indeed gay, as many now believe, he would have had to keep it hidden. He lived across the street from Oscar Wilde, whose infamous 1895 trials publicly cemented the association between artists and homosexuality. In that climate, with laws that broadened the criminalization of gay male activities, a public misstep could have destroyed Sargents career and reputation.Yet, what makes Sargent so compelling is how he pushed the envelope by subtly flaunting his queerness and causing scandals such as the one surrounding his painting Madame X,What follows are ten key moments, in life and on canvas, that reveal Sargents defiant queerness.SARGENTS INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH FELLOW ARTIST ALBERT DE BELLEROCHERecent scholarship suggests that Welsh painter Albert de Belleroche (18641944) may have been the love of Sargents life. They met in Paris and shared a studio while studying art, becoming inseparable.Eight years Sargents junior, Belleroche had an androgynous beauty, with chiseled features and a delicate mouth that Sargent captured in intensely intimate portraits which advertise Sargents physical attraction. Their correspondence, in which Sargent addressed Belleroche as Baby, reveals a deep attachment which violated what were considered appropriate interactions between men at the time.In 1883, Sargent painted a striking portrait of Belleroche and displayed it prominently in his dining room. It remained in his possession for the rest of his life. As Sargents grandnephew has remarked, Anyone looking for Sargents sexual orientation will find it in his strong and obsessive studies of this handsome young man.THE REAL SCANDAL BEHIND SARGENTS MADAME XSargents goal was to stand out at the 1884 Paris Salon, where 2,488 paintings, hung from floor to ceiling, competed for the attention of hundreds of thousands of visitors. His submission, titled Portrait de Mme ***, portrayed Virginie Amlie Gautreau (18591915), a glamorous figure in Pariss high society, in a dazzling black dress that highlighted her unique profile and lavender skin tone. The plunging neckline and a jeweled strap slipping off her shoulder, suggesting she wore no undergarments, caused a riot-like scandal with widespread media coverage and caricatures mocking it.What started as a calculated provocation concocted by two outsiders seeking recognition in Paris clearly backfired. Devastated by the uproar, Sargent repainted the strap and fled to London seeking a fresh start with a new clientele. Despite the criticism, Sargent kept the painting until he sold it to the Met in 1916, when he insisted on the title Madame X, calling it the best thing Ive done.But, beneath the famous scandal lies a deeper and rarely discussed transgression. Albert de Belleroche did at least 80 sittings as a model for Madame X. One of his portraits is clearly the basis for Madame Gautreau Drinking a Toast (1883). Blending the features of Gautreau, his public muse, with Belleroche, his private obsession, Sargent slyly defied gender conventions. In doing so, he echoed one of his idols, Michelangelo, whose figures in the Sistine Chapel often fused male and female forms.THE SHOCKING NUDE PORTRAIT OF SARGENTS BLACK MUSE, THOMAS MCKELLERThe ravishing Nude Study of Thomas E. McKeller (1920) is one of Sargents most arresting works. In a provocative departure from his society portraits, McKeller appears completely nude, his genitals a focal point, his tilted head captured in ecstasy.The story begins in 1916 when, tired of being typecast as the elites portraitist, Sargent accepted a commission to paint the murals for Bostons Museum of Fine Arts. Sargent, who was 60 at the time, struck a conversation with Thomas McKeller, a hunky 26-year-old Black elevator operator, and asked him to become his model on the spot.During the following years, Sargent transformed his Black muse into alabaster-white gods and goddesses for his murals. Surprisingly, Sargent featured McKellers irregular left nipple in many of them, making his identity hauntingly present.Nude Study of Thomas E. McKeller was one of his most beautiful portraits. But Sargent never exhibited it publicly, though he proudly displayed it in his studio. For Trevor Fairbrother, one of the leading scholars of Sargents work, this portrait serves as compelling evidence of the artists queer desire.McKellers great-niece recently suggested that McKeller may have been gay. Well never know if they had an intimate relationship. In any case, this portrait will forever act as a coded love letter that defies time, taboo, and erasure.THE SUBLIME PORTRAIT OF SARGENTS CRUSH, DR. SAMUEL POZZIJohn Singer Sargent had a talent not just for painting, but for choosing sitters who stirred publicity. The charismatic Samuel Jean Pozzi (18461918) was a renowned gynecologist and one of Pariss most notorious men, famous for his constant flirting with men and women, including a rumored affair with Madame X no less.Theres no doubt that Sargent was infatuated with Pozzi, who embodied Sargents favorite type, dark Mediterranean men. Sargent's painting exudes sensuality and challenges portrait tradition by showing Pozzi in bedroom attire, wearing a passion red robe against a lush velvet curtain.Sargent highlights Pozzis handsome face and direct gaze while one hand tugs lightly at his belt, as if caught in the process of disrobing, with the tassel hanging provocatively below his groin.But Sargent does more than eroticize; he subtly queers the composition. Pozzis hand on his waist in the contrapposto pose is associated with queerness. His white collar and cuffs, cinched waist, and elongated, expressive hands blur the lines between masculine and feminine. The final result of his audacious composition leaves you breathless.SARGENTS NUDE PORTRAITS OF HIS VALET AND CLOSE COMPANION, NICOLA DINVERNONicola DInverno was a 19- year-old dashing amateur boxer when he showed up at Sargents door in 1892 offering to model for him. Sargent asked him in to see his physique. He must have liked what he saw, because Nicola became not only Sargents model but his valet, studio assistant, photographer, masseuse and travel companion.In an article after Sargents death, Nicola said, I was the very man Sargent wanted. He was right, Nicola was Sargents exact type. Sargent even paid for Nicolas gym fees so he remained fit.Sargent painted many portraits of DInverno. One particularly tender work shows Nicola reading in bed, an unusually intimate depiction, which shatters the rigid master-servant dynamics of the era. A watercolor from a trip to the Canadian Rockies captures their shared space in a tent, an unmistakable nod to same-sex intimacy.But its in the secret trove of male nudes, many featuring DInverno, that Sargents private desires become most transparent. These works, never exhibited during his lifetime, surfaced only after his death.In a particularly subversive 1900 study, DInverno reclines in the pose of an odalisque, an erotic posture historically reserved for female subjects, here reclaimed with same-sex desire.Completely devoted to Sargent, whom he called the greatest man he ever knew, DInverno remained at Sargents service for 25 years, until he had a fight with a Boston bartender and Sargent dismissed him from his staff.SARGENTS COUNTLESS HOMOEROTIC MALE PORTRAITSOne of the most compelling and overlooked aspects of Sargents work is the overt homoeroticism that permeates many of his male portraits, which art historians are prone to dismiss.The exquisite Young Man in Reverie (1876) and Man Wearing Laurels showcase, once again, Sargents attraction to rugged, Mediterranean, working-class men. This paintings title invokes respectable classicism but the overwhelming erotic charge in the man emerging from shadow leaves no doubt about Sargents true intentions.Sargents sexual interests were hardly a secret among his friends. One of his sitters remarked that the artist had a weakness for Venetian gondoliers, who were known for being amenable to the advances of wealthy male travelers. Sargent painted many of them with a sultry gaze. He even referred to his trusted valet Nicola DInverno as my gondolier.SARGENTS DARING GANG BANG MURALSBy 1916, John Singer Sargent had grown weary of his reputation as society portraitist. Seeking artistic freedom, he accepted the commission to paint the murals for Bostons Museum of Fine Arts. Here, liberated from societys corset, Sargent indulged in mythological themes that gave him license to paint what he truly loved, the nude male body, without any fear of pushback.Two of these murals, Orestes Pursued by Furies and the phallic Hercules Struggle with a Hydra, can easily be interpreted as a metaphor of Sargents struggle with his sexuality.Sargent also worked for 30 years in murals for Bostons Public Library. Among its most infamous panels is Hell, a writhing mass of interlocked male bodies. When Andy Warhol first laid eyes on it, he famously quipped: Thats not hell thats a gang bang!SARGENTS QUEER AND GENDER-NON-CONFORMING CIRCLE OF FRIENDSThough famously discreet in public, Sargent was known to let loose among his inner circle, many of whom were queer. One close friend recalled that during these private gatherings, Sargents favorite expression was Lala! and noted that he was very gay all the time.Among this chosen family was the unconventional Vernon Lee (18561935), the pen name of Violet Paget: a pioneering feminist, art historian, and writer who rejected the eras rigid gender expectations. Her masculine pseudonym and androgynous style were key to her public identity. Sargent captured both in his lifelike 1881 portrait of Lee, which she boasted represented her true self, fierce and cantankerous.Lee, who opposed being labeled a lesbian, lived openly with Clementina Anstruther-Thomson (18571921) as lovers and coauthors. Sargent also painted her portrait.SARGENTS DANDY PORTRAIT HAS BECOME A QUEER ICONSargent painted multiple portraits of dandies, who were connected to Oscar Wilde and came to symbolize homosexuality at a time when queerness was criminalized.Sargent was attracted and repelled by the idea of the exhibitionist dandy, a persona he wouldnt allow himself to be. In an artistic wink, he portrayed dandies with a hand on their waist as a code to reveal the queerness in others that he may have withheld about himself.One of the most famous examples is his 1894 portrait of W. Graham Robertson, a prominent members of Wildes queer circle. Sargent pursued him relentlessly until he agreed to pose. In his autobiography, Robertson campily quips: Why the great artist would be interested in a young man with blonde hair and blue eyes, I cannot imagine.Sargent selected an exquisitely tailored coat so tight and warm that Robertson nearly fainted under the studio lights. In a moment full of the kind of drama Oscar Wilde thrived on, Sargent had to grab Robertson by the lapels and rush him outside for air.Walking a fine line between mockery and homage, Sargent fills the portrait with queer codes, including a poodle with a yellow ribbon, a detail that sent London society into gossiping frenzy.THE SEXUALLY REVEALING MALE NUDESAfter John Singer Sargents death, a cache of male nudes emerged in which a restrained homoeroticism gave way to blatant sexual titillation.A striking example is Nude Man Lying on a Bed (1917), which features a naked young man sprawled across rumpled sheets and smoking a cigarette, an obvious post-coital pose that museums typically omit in their descriptions.In these male nudes, Sargent finally allowed himself to paint desire, not veiled, not coded, but open, unguarded, and disarmingly real.The full story of Sargents sexuality remains elusive, in part because many of his personal letters were destroyed to preserve his reputation. Rather than rely on the tired trope of Sargent as an asexual bachelor married to his work, I align with his biographer Trevor Fairbrother, who argues that the tension between Sargents public persona and his repressed sexuality is the engine that drives the emotional and erotic undercurrents in his work. In essence, John Singer Sargents queerness is what gave Americas Gilded Age the appearance of royalty. If you have any doubts, just check with Mrs. Russell, who, thanks to Sargent, was able to land the Duke of Buckingham after all.Ignacio Darnaude, an art scholar and lecturer, is currently developing the docuseries Hiding in Plain Sight: Breaking the Queer Code in Art. You can view his Instagram, lectures and articles on queer art history at linktr.ee/breakingthegaycodeinartThis gallery was assembled by equalpride's digital photo editor, Nikki Aye.