Book competition

This week’s competition prize is Sargent, The Watercolours by Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, published by Giles in association with Dulwich Picture Gallery. Click here for your chance to win.

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) is most well known as a portraitist, but recent scholarship has revealed a much broader artistic reach. During his long career he painted more than 2,000 watercolours, on his travels through Europe, the Middle East and America.

Sargent’s approach to the medium was unorthodox. He overturned traditional compositional standards and developed an audacious and sophisticated technique, working in bold, fluid strokes, creating unconventional and abbreviated forms and eloquent surface textures. This new volume, which accompanies an exhibition currently at Dulwich Picture Gallery, features 80 works in watercolour, from museum and private collections in the UK, France, Spain and Switzerland, ranging in date for the 1870s to the 1920s. Contemporary photographs of the artist and his models put the finished works in context.

For your chance to win simply answer the following question and submit your details here before midday on 21 July:

Q: Which French painter (and Sargent’s former teacher) was the subject of the portrait Sargent exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1879?

Last week’s competition prize was Ravilious & Co: The Pattern of Friendship, by Andy Friend (with an introduction by Alan Powers), published by Thames & Hudson. The question was:

Q: In which English county is the village of Great Bardfield, where Eric Ravilious and many other artists settled?

A: Essex

Congratulations to the winner, Simon Welfare.