Mark Beard | Bruce Sargeant (1898-1938)

“Bruce Sargeant is a mythic figure in the modern art movement. He embodies a world that is in many ways lost to us; he exudes a sensibility that fills every corner of his canvas; the heaviness of his figures hides an elusive levity. . . In the stock-still gaze of his athletes, in the subdued intensity of his still lifes, in the reflective sheen on his three-dimensional work, it is clear that he goes beyond reality. In his attempt to prove the simplicity of imitative simulacra, he achieves a sort of non-realism. If you look closely in the eyes of his subjects, they seem beyond the world of the viewer. They simply cannot exist—nor can the artist who created them. Sargeant is at the height of his powers when he achieves this superficiality—in the pure sense of what lies on surfaces—an analogue for the sublime.”

—Gary L. Haller, December 2004