Muddy Alligators

Artist/Culture John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925)

Date1917

Mediumwatercolor over graphite, with masking out and scraping, on thick, textured, cream wove paper

Dimensionssheet: 34.4 × 53 cm (13 9/16 × 20 7/8 in.)

ClassificationsWatercolors

Credit LineSustaining Membership Fund

Terms

Object number1917.86

Label TextWatercolorists and scholars often cite Muddy Alligators as one of the most dazzling examples of the medium. Rendering the swampy landscape in abstract patches of color—sometimes pooled, other times masked and scraped—Sargent expresses the muscular tonnage of five sunbaked alligators using wispy, disconnected marks and the warmth of the cream paper. Although his brushstrokes appear spontaneous and confident throughout the work, his graphite sketches demonstrate that he closely examined these prehistoric creatures' weighty, serpentine bodies. In a letter to a friend, Sargent made the disingenuous comment that alligators “don’t make very interesting pictures.” Still, in June 1917, he sent a letter to WAM encouraging the museum to change its descriptive title of Alligators. “…It might be well to call the alligator one Muddy Alligators to explain their whiteness.”ProvenanceThe artist

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