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Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists. For the length of his professional career, from the early 1870s until his health began to fail some 40 years later, Eakins worked exactingly from life, choosing as his subject the people of his hometown of Philadelphia. He painted several hundred portraits, usually of friends, family members, or prominent people in the arts, sciences, medicine, and clergy. Taken ''en masse'', the portraits offer an overview of the intellectual life of contemporary Philadelphia; individually, they are incisive depictions of thinking persons. In addition, Eakins produced a number of large paintings that brought the portrait out of the drawing room and into the offices, streets, parks, rivers, arenas, and surgical amphitheaters of his city. These active outdoor venues allowed him to paint the subject that most inspired him: the nude or lightly clad figure in motion. In the process, he could model the forms of the body in full sunlight, and create images of deep space utilizing his studies in perspective. Eakins also took a keen interest in the new technologies of
motion photography A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
, a field in which he is now seen as an innovator. No less important in Eakins' life was his work as a teacher. As an instructor he was a highly influential presence in
American art Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial arc ...
. The difficulties which beset him as an artist seeking to paint the portrait and figure realistically were paralleled and even amplified in his career as an educator, where behavioral and sexual scandals truncated his success and damaged his reputation. Eakins was a controversial figure whose work received little by way of official recognition during his lifetime. Since his death, he has been celebrated by American
art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
s as "the strongest, most profound realist in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American art".


Life and work


Youth

Eakins was born and lived most of his life in Philadelphia. He was the first child of Caroline Cowperthwait Eakins, a woman of English and Dutch descent, and Benjamin Eakins, a writing master and calligraphy teacher of Scots-Irish ancestry. Benjamin Eakins grew up on a farm in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the son of a weaver. He was successful in his chosen profession, and moved to Philadelphia in the early 1840s to raise his family. Thomas Eakins observed his father at work and by twelve demonstrated skill in precise line drawing, perspective, and the use of a grid to lay out a careful design, skills he later applied to his art. He was an athletic child who enjoyed rowing, ice skating, swimming, wrestling, sailing, and gymnastics—activities he later painted and encouraged in his students. Eakins attended Central High School, the premier public school for applied science and arts in the city, where he excelled in mechanical drawing. Thomas met fellow artist and lifelong friend, Charles Lewis Fussell in high school and they reunited to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Thomas began at the academy in 1861 and later attended courses in anatomy and dissection at
Jefferson Medical College Thomas Jefferson University is a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Established in its earliest form in 1824, the university officially combined with Philadelphia University in 2017. To signify its heritage, the univer ...
from 1864 to 65. For a while, he followed his father's profession and was listed in city directories as a "writing teacher". His scientific interest in the human body led him to consider becoming a surgeon. Eakins then studied art in Europe from 1866 to 1870, notably in Paris with Jean-Léon Gérôme, being only the second American pupil of the French realist painter, famous as a master of
Orientalism In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
. He also attended the atelier of
Léon Bonnat Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat (20 June 1833 – 8 September 1922) was a French painter, Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur and professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Early life Bonnat was born in Bayonne, but from 1846 to 1853 he lived in Ma ...
, a realist painter who emphasized anatomical preciseness, a method adapted by Eakins. While studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, he seems to have taken scant interest in the new
Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
movement, nor was he impressed by what he perceived as the classical pretensions of the French Academy. A letter home to his father in 1868 made his aesthetic clear:
She
he female nude He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
is the most beautiful thing there is in the world except a naked man, but I never yet saw a study of one exhibited... It would be a godsend to see a fine man model painted in the studio with the bare walls, alongside of the smiling smirking goddesses of waxy complexion amidst the delicious arsenic green trees and gentle wax flowers & purling streams running melodious up & down the hills especially up. I hate affectation.
Already at age 24, "nudity and verity were linked with an unusual closeness in his mind." Yet his desire for truthfulness was more expansive, and the letters home to Philadelphia reveal a passion for realism that included, but was not limited to, the study of the figure. A trip to Spain for six months confirmed his admiration for the realism of artists such as
Diego Velázquez Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of th ...
and Jusepe de Ribera. In Seville in 1869 he painted '' Carmelita Requeña'', a portrait of a seven-year-old gypsy dancer more freely and colorfully painted than his Paris studies. That same year he attempted his first large oil painting, '' A Street Scene in Seville'', wherein he first dealt with the complications of a scene observed outside the studio. Although he failed to matriculate in a formal degree program and had showed no works in the European salons, Eakins succeeded in absorbing the techniques and methods of French and Spanish masters, and he began to formulate his artistic vision which he demonstrated in his first major painting upon his return to America. "I shall seek to achieve my broad effect from the very beginning", he declared.


Early career

Eakins' first works upon his return from Europe included a large group of rowing scenes, eleven oils and watercolors in all, of which the first and most famous is '' Max Schmitt in a Single Scull'' (1871; also known as ''The Champion Single Sculling''). Both his subject and his technique drew attention. His selection of a contemporary sport was "a shock to the artistic conventionalities of the city". Eakins placed himself in the painting, in a scull behind Schmitt, his name inscribed on the boat. Typically, the work entailed critical observation of the painting's subject, as well as preparatory drawings of the figure and perspective plans of the scull in the water. Its preparation and composition indicates the importance of Eakins' academic training in Paris. It was a completely original conception, true to Eakins' firsthand experience, and an almost startlingly successful image for the artist, who had struggled with his first outdoor composition less than a year before. His first known sale was the watercolor ''The Sculler'' (1874). Most critics judged the rowing pictures successful and auspicious, but after the initial flourish, Eakins never revisited the subject of rowing and went on to other sports themes. At the same time that he made these initial ventures into outdoor themes, Eakins produced a series of domestic Victorian interiors, often with his father, his sisters or friends as the subjects. '' Home Scene'' (1871), '' Elizabeth at the Piano'' (1875), '' The Chess Players'' (1876), and '' Elizabeth Crowell and her Dog'' (1874), each dark in tonality, focus on the unsentimental characterization of individuals adopting natural attitudes in their homes. It was in this vein that in 1872 he painted his first large scale portrait, ''
Kathrin Kathrin or ''Katrin'' or ''Kathryn'' or ''Kathrine'' is a female given name. Persons with the name * Ann-Kathrin Kramer (born 1966), German writer and actress * Ann-Kathrin Linsenhoff (born 1960), German athlete in equestrian * Kathryn Adams (actr ...
'', in which the subject, Kathrin Crowell, is seen in dim light, playing with a kitten. In 1874 Eakins and Crowell became engaged; they were still engaged five years later, when Crowell died of
meningitis Meningitis is acute or chronic inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, collectively called the meninges. The most common symptoms are fever, headache, and neck stiffness. Other symptoms include confusion or ...
in 1879.


Teaching and forced resignation from Academy

Eakins returned to the Pennsylvania Academy to teach in 1876 as a volunteer after the opening of the school's new
Frank Furness Frank Heyling Furness (November 12, 1839 - June 27, 1912) was an American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his diverse, muscular, often unordinarily scaled b ...
designed building. He became a salaried professor in 1878, and rose to director in 1882. His teaching methods were controversial: there was no drawing from antique casts, and students received only a short study in charcoal, followed quickly by their introduction to painting, in order to grasp subjects in true color as soon as practical. He encouraged students to use photography as an aid to understanding anatomy and the study of motion, and disallowed prize competitions. Although there was no specialized vocational instruction, students with aspirations for using their school training for applied arts, such as illustration, lithography, and decoration, were as welcome as students interested in becoming portrait artists. Most notable was his interest in the instruction of all aspects of the
human figure The nude, as a form of visual art that focuses on the unclothed human figure, is an enduring tradition in Western art. It was a preoccupation of Ancient Greek art, and after a semi-dormant period in the Middle Ages returned to a central position ...
, including anatomical study of the human and animal body, and surgical
dissection Dissection (from Latin ' "to cut to pieces"; also called anatomization) is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause o ...
; there were also rigorous courses in the fundamentals of form, and studies in perspective which involved mathematics. As an aid to the study of anatomy,
plaster casts A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a pregnant belly, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – p ...
were made from dissections, duplicates of which were furnished to students. A similar study was made of the anatomy of horses; acknowledging Eakins' expertise, in 1891 his friend, the sculptor William Rudolf O'Donovan, asked him to collaborate on the commission to create bronze equestrian reliefs of Abraham Lincoln and
Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...
, for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch in Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. Owing to Eakins' devotion to working from life, the academy's course of study was by the early 1880s the most "liberal and advanced in the world". Eakins believed in teaching by example and letting the students find their own way with only terse guidance. His students included painters, cartoonists, and illustrators such as Henry Ossawa Tanner,
Thomas Pollock Anshutz Thomas Pollock Anshutz (October 5, 1851 – June 16, 1912) was an American painter and teacher. Known for his portraiture and genre scenes, Anshutz was a co-founder of The Darby School. One of Thomas Eakins's most prominent students, he succeede ...
,
Edward Willis Redfield Edward Willis Redfield (December 18, 1869 – October 19, 1965) was an American Impressionist landscape painter and member of the art colony at New Hope, Pennsylvania. He is best known today for his impressionist scenes of the New Hope ar ...
, Colin Campbell Cooper, Alice Barber Stephens,
Frederick Judd Waugh Frederick Judd Waugh (September 13, 1861 in Bordentown, New Jersey – September 10, 1940) was an American artist, primarily known as a marine artist. During World War I, he designed ship camouflage for the U.S. Navy, under the direction of Evere ...
,
T. S. Sullivant Thomas Starling Sullivant (November 4, 1854 – August 7, 1926) was an American cartoonist who signed his work T. S. Sullivant. His work appeared most frequently in the pages of the humorous ''Life'' magazine. Best known for his animal and eth ...
and
A. B. Frost Arthur Burdett Frost (January 17, 1851 – June 22, 1928), usually cited as A. B. Frost, was an American illustrator, graphic artist, painter and comics writer. He is best known for his illustrations of Brer Rabbit and other characters i ...
. He stated his teaching philosophy bluntly, "A teacher can do very little for a pupil & should only be thankful if he don't hinder him ... and the greater the master, mostly the less he can say." He believed that women should "assume professional privileges" as would men. Life classes and dissection were segregated but women had access to male models (who were nude but wore loincloths). The line between impartiality and questionable behavior was a thin one. When a female student,
Amelia Van Buren Amelia C. Van Buren ( – 1942) was an American photographer. A noted portrait photographer, she was a student of Thomas Eakins, and the subject of his c. 1891 painting '' Miss Amelia Van Buren'', regarded as one of his finest works. Pennsylva ...
, asked about the movement of the pelvis, Eakins invited her to his studio, where he undressed and "gave her the explanation as I could not have done by words only". Such incidents, coupled with the ambitions of his younger associates to oust him and take over the school themselves, created tensions between him and the academy's board of directors. He was ultimately forced to resign in 1886, for removing the loincloth of a male model in a class where female students were present. The forced resignation was a major setback for Eakins. His family was split, with his in-laws siding against him in public dispute. He struggled to protect his name against rumors and false charges, had bouts of ill health, and suffered a humiliation which he felt for the rest of his life. A drawing manual he had written and prepared illustrations for remained unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. Eakins' popularity among the students was such that a number of them broke with the academy and formed the
Art Students' League of Philadelphia Art Students' League of Philadelphia was a short-lived, co-operative art school formed in reaction to Thomas Eakins's February 1886 forced-resignation from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Eakins taught without pay at ASL from 1886 until t ...
(1886–1893), where Eakins subsequently instructed. It was there that he met the student Samuel Murray, who would become his protege and lifelong friend. He also lectured and taught at a number of other schools, including the
Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stu ...
, the National Academy of Design,
Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...
, and the Art Students' Guild in Washington DC. Dismissed in March 1895 by the
Drexel Institute Drexel University is a private research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a financier and philanthropist. Founded as Drexel Institute of Art, S ...
in Philadelphia for again using a fully nude male model, he gradually withdrew from teaching by 1898.


Photography

Eakins has been credited with having "introduced the camera to the American art studio". During his study abroad, he was exposed to the use of photography by the French realists, though the use of photography was still frowned upon as a shortcut by traditionalists. In the late 1870s, Eakins was introduced to the photographic motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge, particularly the equine studies, and became interested in using the camera to study sequential movement. In 1883, Muybridge gave a lecture at the academy, arranged by Eakins and University of Pennsylvania (Penn) trustee
Fairman Rogers Fairman Rogers (November 15, 1833 – August 22, 1900) was an American civil engineer, educator, and philanthropist. Early life Fairman Rogers was born in Philadelphia on November 15, 1833. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 18 ...
. A group of Philadelphians, including Penn Provost William Pepper and the publisher
J. B. Lippincott J. B. Lippincott & Co. was an American publishing house founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1836 by Joshua Ballinger Lippincott. It was incorporated in 1885 as J. B. Lippincott Company. History 1836–1977 Joshua Ballinger Lippincott (Marc ...
recruited Muybridge to work at Penn under their sponsorship. In 1884, Eakins worked briefly alongside Muybridge in the latter's photographic studio at the northeast corner of 36th and Pine streets in Philadelphia. Eakins soon performed his own independent motion studies, also usually involving the nude figure, and even developed his own technique for capturing movement on film. Whereas Muybridge's system relied on a series of cameras triggered to produce a sequence of individual photographs, Eakins preferred to use a single camera to produce a series of exposures superimposed on one negative. Eakins was more interested in precision measurements on a single image to aid in translating a motion into a painting, while Muybridge preferred separate images that could also be displayed by his primitive movie projector. After Eakins obtained a camera in 1880, several paintings, such as '' Mending the Net'' (1881) and ''
Arcadia Arcadia may refer to: Places Australia * Arcadia, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney * Arcadia, Queensland * Arcadia, Victoria Greece * Arcadia (region), a region in the central Peloponnese * Arcadia (regional unit), a modern administrative un ...
'' (1883), are known to have been derived at least in part from his photographs. Some figures appear to be detailed transcriptions and tracings from the photographs by some device like a
magic lantern The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a sin ...
, which Eakins then took pains to cover up with oil paint. Eakins' methods appear to be meticulously applied, and rather than shortcuts, were likely used in a quest for accuracy and realism.  An excellent example of Eakins' use of this new technology is his painting '' A May Morning in the Park'', which relied heavily on photographic motion studies to depict the true gait of the four horses pulling the coach of patron
Fairman Rogers Fairman Rogers (November 15, 1833 – August 22, 1900) was an American civil engineer, educator, and philanthropist. Early life Fairman Rogers was born in Philadelphia on November 15, 1833. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 18 ...
. But in typical fashion, Eakins also employed wax figures and oil sketches to get the final effect he desired. The so-called "Naked Series", which began in 1883, were nude photos of students and professional models which were taken to show real human anatomy from several specific angles, and were often hung and displayed for study at the school. Later, less regimented poses were taken indoors and out, of men, women, and children, including his wife. The most provocative, and the only ones combining males and females, were nude photos of Eakins and a female model (see below). Although witnesses and chaperones were usually on site, and the poses were mostly traditional in nature, the sheer quantity of the photos and Eakins' overt display of them may have undermined his standing at the academy. In all, about eight hundred photographs are now attributed to Eakins and his circle, most of which are figure studies, both clothed and nude, and portraits. No other American artist of his time matched Eakins' interest in photography, nor produced a comparable body of photographic works. Eakins used photography for his own private ends as well. Aside from nude men, and women, he also photographed nude children. While the photographs of the nude adults are more artistically composed, the younger children and infants are posed less formally. These photographs, that are “charged with sexual overtones,” as Susan Danly and Cheryl Leibold write, are of unidentified children. In the catalog of Eakins' collection at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, photograph number 308 is of an African American child reclining on a couch and posed as Venus. Both
Saidiya Hartman Saidiya Hartman (born ) is an American writer and academic focusing on African-American studies. She is currently a University Professor at Columbia University. Early life Hartman was born in and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She earned a B. ...
and Fred Moten write, respectively, about the photograph, and the child that it arrests.


Portraits

I will never have to give up painting, for even now I could paint heads good enough to make a living anywhere in America.
For Eakins, portraiture held little interest as a means of fashionable idealization or even simple verisimilitude. Instead, it provided the opportunity to reveal the character of an individual through the modeling of solid anatomical form. This meant that, notwithstanding his youthful optimism, Eakins would never be a commercially successful portrait painter, as few paid commissions came his way. But his total output of some two hundred and fifty portraits is characterized by "an uncompromising search for the unique human being". Often this search for individuality required that the subject be painted in his own daily working environment. Eakins' '' Portrait of Professor Benjamin H. Rand'' (1874) was a prelude to what many consider his most important work. In '' The Gross Clinic'' (1875), a renowned Philadelphia surgeon, Dr.
Samuel D. Gross Samuel David Gross (July 8, 1805 – May 6, 1884) was an American academic trauma surgeon. Surgeon biographer Isaac Minis Hays called Gross "The Nestor of American Surgery." He is immortalized in Thomas Eakins' ''The Gross Clinic'' (1875), a ...
, is seen presiding over an operation to remove part of a diseased bone from a patient's thigh. Gross lectures in an amphitheater crowded with students at
Jefferson Medical College Thomas Jefferson University is a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Established in its earliest form in 1824, the university officially combined with Philadelphia University in 2017. To signify its heritage, the univer ...
. Eakins spent nearly a year on the painting, again choosing a novel subject, the discipline of modern surgery, in which Philadelphia was in the forefront. He initiated the project and may have had the goal of a grand work befitting a showing at the Centennial Exposition of 1876. Though rejected for the Art Gallery, the painting was shown on the centennial grounds at an exhibit of a U.S. Army Post Hospital. In sharp contrast, another Eakins submission, '' The Chess Players'', was accepted by the committee and was much admired at the Centennial Exhibition, and critically praised. At 96 by 78 inches (240 × 200 cm), ''The Gross Clinic'' is one of the artist's largest works, and considered by some to be his greatest. Eakins' high expectations at the start of the project were recorded in a letter, "What elates me more is that I have just got a new picture blocked in and it is very far better than anything I have ever done. As I spoil things less and less in finishing I have the greatest hopes of this one" But if Eakins hoped to impress his home town with the picture, he was to be disappointed; public reaction to the painting of a realistic surgical incision and the resultant blood was ambivalent at best, and it was finally purchased by the college for the unimpressive sum of $200. Eakins borrowed it for subsequent exhibitions, where it drew strong reactions, such as that of the '' New York Daily Tribune'', which both acknowledged and damned its powerful image, "but the more one praises it, the more one must condemn its admission to a gallery where men and women of weak nerves must be compelled to look at it. For not to look it is impossible...No purpose is gained by this morbid exhibition, no lesson taught—the painter shows his skill and the spectators' gorge rises at it—that is all." The college now describes it thus: "Today the once maligned picture is celebrated as a great nineteenth-century medical history painting, featuring one of the most superb portraits in American art". In 1876, Eakins completed a portrait of Dr. John Brinton, surgeon of the Philadelphia Hospital, and famed for his Civil War service. Done in a more informal setting than ''The Gross Clinic'', it was a personal favorite of Eakins, and '' The Art Journal'' proclaimed "it is in every respect a more favorable example of this artist's abilities than his much-talked-of composition representing a dissecting room." Other outstanding examples of his portraits include ''
The Agnew Clinic ''The Agnew Clinic'' (or ''The Clinic of Dr. Agnew'') is an 1889 oil painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. It was commissioned to honor anatomist and surgeon David Hayes Agnew, on his retirement from teaching at the University of Pennsylvan ...
'' (1889), Eakins' most important commission and largest painting, which depicted another eminent American surgeon, Dr.
David Hayes Agnew David Hayes Agnew (November 24, 1818March 22, 1892) was an American surgery, surgeon. Biography Agnew was born on November 24, 1818, Nobleville, Pennsylvania (present-day Christiana, Pennsylvania, Christiana). His parents were Robert Agnew and ...
, performing a mastectomy; '' The Dean's Roll Call'' (1899), featuring Dr. James W. Holland, and '' Professor Leslie W. Miller'' (1901), portraits of educators standing as if addressing an audience; a portrait of Frank Hamilton Cushing (c. 1895), in which the prominent ethnologist is seen performing an incantation at the Zuñi pueblo; '' Professor Henry A. Rowland'' (1897), a brilliant scientist whose study of spectroscopy revolutionized his field; ''Antiquated Music'' (1900), in which Mrs. William D. Frishmuth is shown seated amidst her collection of musical instruments; and ''
The Concert Singer ''The Concert Singer'' is a painting by Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), depicting the singer Weda Cook (1867–1937). The work, commenced in 1890 and completed in 1892, was Eakins's first full-length portrait of a woman.
'' (1890–1892), for which Eakins asked Weda Cook to sing "O rest in the Lord", so that he could study the muscles of her throat and mouth. To replicate the proper deployment of a
baton Baton may refer to: Stick-like objects *Baton, a type of club *Baton (law enforcement) *Baston (weapon), a type of baton used in Arnis and Filipino Martial Arts *Baton charge, a coordinated tactic for dispersing crowds of people *Baton (conductin ...
, Eakins enlisted an orchestral conductor to pose for the hand seen in the lower left-hand corner of the painting. Of Eakins' later portraits, many took as their subjects women who were friends or students. Unlike most portrayals of women at the time, they are devoid of glamor and idealization. For ''
Portrait of Letitia Wilson Jordan A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...
'' (1888), Eakins painted the sitter wearing the same evening dress in which he had seen her at a party. She is a substantial presence, a vision quite different from the era's fashionable portraiture. So, too, his ''
Portrait of Maud Cook ''Portrait of Maud Cook'' is an 1895 painting by the American artist Thomas Eakins, Goodrich catalogue #279. It is in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery. Given the artist's lack of interest in fashion or conventional beauty, th ...
'' (1895), where the obvious beauty of the subject is noted with "a stark objectivity". The portrait of ''
Miss Amelia Van Buren ''Miss Amelia Van Buren'' or ''Portrait of Amelia C. Van Buren'' is a ca. 1891 painting by the American artist Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), now in The Phillips Collection. It depicts Amelia Van Buren ( – 1942), an artist who studied with Eakin ...
'' (c. 1890), a friend and former pupil, suggests the melancholy of a complex personality, and has been called "the finest of all American portraits". Even
Susan Macdowell Eakins Susan Hannah Eakins ( Macdowell; September 21, 1851 – December 27, 1938) was an American painter and photographer. Her works were first shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she was a student. She won the Mary Smith Prize th ...
, a strong painter and former student who married Eakins in 1884, was not sentimentalized: despite its richness of color, ''
The Artist's Wife and His Setter Dog ''The Artist's Wife and His Setter Dog'' is a painting by Thomas Eakins, from ''c.'' 1884–1889. It is part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York. History and description Eakins began this portrait shortly after his m ...
'' (c. 1884–1889) is a penetratingly candid portrait. Some of his most vivid portraits resulted from a late series done for the Catholic clergy, which included paintings of a cardinal, archbishops, bishops, and monsignors. As usual, most of the sitters were engaged at Eakins' request, and were given the portraits when Eakins had completed them. In portraits of '' His Eminence Sebastiano Cardinal Martinelli'' (1902), ''
Archbishop William Henry Elder ''Archbishop William Henry Elder'' is a 1903 oil portrait by Thomas Eakins depicting the Archbishop of Cincinnati William Henry Elder, one of a series of portraits of Catholic clergy Eakins undertook late in his career. In this psychologically ...
'' (1903), and '' Monsignor James P. Turner'' (c. 1906), Eakins took advantage of the brilliant vestments of the offices to animate the compositions in a way not possible in his other male portraits. Deeply affected by his dismissal from the academy, Eakins focused his later career on portraiture, such as his 1905 ''
Portrait of Professor William S. Forbes William Smith Forbes (10 February 1831 – 17 December 1905)Staff report (December 18, 1905) Dr. William Smith Forbes. (obituary) ''New York Times'' was an American physician who served as demonstrator of anatomy at Jefferson Medical College. H ...
''. His steadfast insistence on his own vision of realism, in addition to his notoriety from his school scandals, combined to hurt his income in later years. Even as he approached these portraits with the skill of a highly trained anatomist, what is most noteworthy is the intense psychological presence of his sitters. However, it was precisely for this reason that his portraits were often rejected by the sitters or their families. As a result, Eakins came to rely on his friends and family members to model for portraits. His portrait of Walt Whitman (1887–1888) was the poet's favorite.


The figure

Eakins' lifelong interest in the figure, nude or nearly so, took several thematic forms. The rowing paintings of the early 1870s constitute the first series of figure studies. In Eakins' largest picture on the subject, '' The Biglin Brothers Turning the Stake'' (1873), the muscular dynamism of the body is given its fullest treatment. In the 1877 painting '' William Rush and His Model'', he painted the female nude as integral to a historical subject, even though there is no evidence that the model who posed for Rush did so in the nude. The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 helped foster a revival in interest in Colonial America and Eakins participated with an ambitious project employing oil studies, wax and wood models, and finally the portrait in 1877. William Rush was a celebrated Colonial sculptor and ship carver, a revered example of an artist-citizen who figured prominently in Philadelphia civic life, and a founder of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where Eakins had started teaching. Despite his sincerely depicted reverence for Rush, Eakins' treatment of the human body once again drew criticism. This time it was the nude model and her heaped-up clothes depicted front and center, with Rush relegated to the deep shadows in the left background, that stirred dissatisfaction. Nonetheless, Eakins found a subject that referenced his native city and an earlier Philadelphia artist, and allowed for an assay on the female nude seen from behind. When he returned to the subject many years later, the narrative became more personal: In '' William Rush and His Model'' (1908), gone are the chaperon and detailed interior of the earlier work. The professional distance between sculptor and model has been eliminated, and the relationship has become intimate. In one version of the painting from that year, the nude is seen from the front, being helped down from the model stand by an artist who bears a strong resemblance to Eakins. ''
The Swimming Hole ''The Swimming Hole'' (also known as ''Swimming'' and ''The Old Swimming Hole'') is an 1884–85 painting by the American artist Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), Goodrich catalog #190, in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art i ...
'' (1884–85) features Eakins' finest studies of the nude, in his most successfully constructed outdoor picture. The figures are those of his friends and students, and include a self-portrait. Although there are photographs by Eakins which relate to the painting, the picture's powerful pyramidal composition and sculptural conception of the individual bodies are completely distinctive pictorial resolutions. The work was painted on commission, but was refused. In the late 1890s Eakins returned to the male figure, this time in a more urban setting. ''
Taking the Count ''Taking the Count'' is an 1898 painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. It is part of the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, in New Haven. This depiction of a prizefight marks Eakins' return to anatomical studies of the male fig ...
'' (1896), a painting of a prizefight, was his second largest canvas, but not his most successful composition. The same may be said of '' Wrestlers'' (1899). More successful was ''
Between Rounds ''Between Rounds'' is an 1899 painting by American artist Thomas Eakins, Goodrich #312. It is part of the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art It depicts a boxer resting in his corner during a boxing match. Studies File:Sketch for Betw ...
'' (1899), for which boxer Billy Smith posed seated in his corner at Philadelphia's Arena; in fact, all the principal figures were posed by models re-enacting what had been an actual fight. ''
Salutat ''Salutat'' is an 1898 painting by Thomas Eakins (1844–1916). Based on a real-life boxing match that occurred in 1898, the work depicts a boxer waving to the crowd after the match. According to Eakins' biographer Lloyd Goodrich, ''Salutat'' is ...
'' (1898), a frieze-like composition in which the main figure is isolated, "is one of Eakins' finest achievements in figure-painting." Although Eakins was agnostic, he painted '' The Crucifixion'' in 1880. Art historian Akela Reason says
Eakins's selection of this subject has puzzled some art historians who, unable to reconcile what appears to be an anomalous religious image by a reputedly agnostic artist, have related it solely to Eakins's desire for realism, thus divesting the painting of its religious content. Lloyd Goodrich, for example, considered this illustration of Christ's suffering completely devoid of "religious sentiment" and suggested that Eakins intended it simply as a realist study of the male nude body. As a result, art historians have frequently associated 'Crucifixion' (like Swimming) with Eakins's strong interest in anatomy and the nude.
In his later years Eakins persistently asked his female portrait models to pose in the nude, a practice which would have been all but prohibited in conventional Philadelphia society. Inevitably, his desires were frustrated.


Personal life and marriage

The nature of Eakins' sexuality and its impact on his art is a matter of intense scholarly debate. Strong circumstantial evidence points to discussion during Eakins's lifetime that he had homosexual leanings, and there is little doubt that he was attracted to men, as evidenced in his photography, and three major paintings where male buttocks are a focal point: ''The Gross Clinic'', ''Salutat'', and ''The Swimming Hole.'' The last, in which Eakins appears, is increasingly seen as sensuous and autobiographical. Until recently, major Eakins scholars persistently denied he was homosexual, and such discussion was marginalized. While there is still no consensus, today discussion of homoerotic desire plays a large role in Eakins scholarship. The discovery of a large trove of Eakins' personal papers in 1984 has also driven reassessment of his life. Eakins met Emily Sartain, daughter of
John Sartain John Sartain (October 24, 1808 – October 25, 1897) was an English-born American artist who pioneered mezzotint engraving in the United States. Biography John Sartain was born in London, England. He learned line engraving, and produced several o ...
, while studying at the academy. Their romance foundered after Eakins moved to Paris to study, and she accused him of immorality. It is likely Eakins had told her of frequenting places where prostitutes assembled. The son of Eakins' physician also reported that Eakins had been "very loose sexually—went to France, where there are no morals, and the french morality suited him to a T". In 1884, at age 40, Eakins married Susan Hannah Macdowell, the daughter of a Philadelphia engraver. Two years earlier Eakins' sister Margaret, who had acted as his secretary and personal servant, had died of typhoid. It has been suggested that Eakins married to replace her. Macdowell was 25 when Eakins met her at the Hazeltine Gallery where ''The Gross Clinic'' was being exhibited in 1875. Unlike many, she was impressed by the controversial painting and she decided to study with him at the academy, which she attended for six years, adopting a sober, realistic style similar to her teacher's. Macdowell was an outstanding student and winner of the
Mary Smith Prize The Mary Smith Prize (defunct) was a prestigious art prize awarded to women artists by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. It recognized the best work by a Philadelphia woman artist at PAFA's annual exhibition — one that showed "the mo ...
for the best painting by a matriculating woman artist. During their childless marriage, she painted only sporadically and spent most of her time supporting her husband's career, entertaining guests and students, and faithfully backing him in his difficult times with the academy, even when some members of her family aligned against Eakins. She and Eakins both shared a passion for photography, both as photographers and subjects, and employed it as a tool for their art. She also posed nude for many of his photos and took images of him. Both had separate studios in their home. After Eakins' death in 1916, she returned to painting, adding considerably to her output right up to the 1930s, in a style that became warmer, looser, and brighter in tone. She died in 1938. Thirty-five years after her death, in 1973, she had her first one-woman exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In the latter years of his life, Eakins' constant companion was the handsome sculptor Samuel Murray, who shared his interest in boxing and bicycling. The evidence suggests the relationship was more emotionally important to Eakins than that with his wife. Throughout his life, Eakins appears to have been drawn to those who were mentally vulnerable and then preyed upon those weaknesses. Several of his students ended their lives in insanity.


Death and legacy

Eakins died on June 25, 1916, at the age of 71 and is buried at The Woodlands, which is located near the University of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia. Late in life Eakins did experience some recognition. In 1902 he was made a
National Academician The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fine ...
. In 1914 the sale of a portrait study of
D. Hayes Agnew David Hayes Agnew (November 24, 1818March 22, 1892) was an American surgeon. Biography Agnew was born on November 24, 1818, Nobleville, Pennsylvania (present-day Christiana). His parents were Robert Agnew and Agnes Noble. Agnew grew up as a Ch ...
for ''The Agnew Clinic'' to Dr.
Albert C. Barnes Albert Coombs Barnes (January 2, 1872 – July 24, 1951) was an American chemist, businessman, art collector, writer, and educator, and the founder of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.“Biographical Note,” Albert C. Barne ...
precipitated much publicity when rumors circulated that the selling price was fifty thousand dollars. In fact, Barnes bought the painting for four thousand dollars. In the year after his death, Eakins was honored with a memorial retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in 1917–18 the Pennsylvania Academy followed suit. Susan Macdowell Eakins did much to preserve his reputation, including giving the
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...
more than fifty of her husband's oil paintings. After her death in 1938, other works were sold off, and eventually another large collection of art and personal material was purchased by
Joseph Hirshhorn Joseph Herman Hirshhorn (August 11, 1899 – August 31, 1981) was an entrepreneur, financier, and art collector. Biography Born in Mitau, Latvia, the twelfth of thirteen children, Hirshhorn emigrated to the United States with his widowed mothe ...
, and now is part of the Hirshhorn Museum's collection. Since then, Eakins' home in North Philadelphia was put on the National Register of Historic Places list in 1966, and
Eakins Oval Eakins Oval is a traffic circle in Philadelphia. It forms the northwest end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway just in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with a central array of fountains and monuments, and a network of pedestrian walkways. ...
, across from the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, was named for the artist. In 1967 ''The Biglin Brothers Racing'' (1872) was reproduced on a United States postage stamp. His work was also part of the painting event in the art competition at the
1932 Summer Olympics The 1932 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the X Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1932) were an international multi-sport event held from July 30 to August 14, 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. The Games were held duri ...
. Eakins' attitude toward
realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...
in painting, and his desire to explore the heart of American life proved influential. He taught hundreds of students, among them his future wife Susan Macdowell, African-American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner, and Thomas Anshutz, who taught, in turn, Robert Henri, George Luks, John Sloan, and Everett Shinn, future members of the Ashcan School, and other realists and artistic heirs to Eakins' philosophy. Though his is not a household name, and though during his lifetime Eakins struggled to make a living from his work, today he is regarded as one of the most important American artists of any period. Since the 1990s, Eakins has emerged as a major figure in sexuality studies in art history, for both the
homoeroticism Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homose ...
of his male nudes and for the complexity of his attitudes toward women. Controversy shaped much of his career as a teacher and as an artist. He insisted on teaching men and women "the same", used nude male models in female classes and vice versa, and was accused of abusing female students. Recent scholarship suggests that these scandals were grounded in more than the "puritanical prudery" of his contemporaries—as had once been assumed—and that Eakins' progressive academic principles may have protected unconscious and dubious agendas. These controversies may have been caused by a combination of factors such as the bohemianism of Eakins and his circle (in which students, for example, sometimes modeled in the nude for each other), the intensity and authority of his teaching style, and Eakins' inclination toward unorthodox or provocative behavior.


Disposition of estate

Eakins was unable to sell many of his works during his lifetime, so when he died in 1916, a large body of artwork passed to his widow,
Susan Macdowell Eakins Susan Hannah Eakins ( Macdowell; September 21, 1851 – December 27, 1938) was an American painter and photographer. Her works were first shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she was a student. She won the Mary Smith Prize th ...
. She carefully preserved it, donating some of the strongest pieces to various museums. When she in turn died in 1938, much of the remaining artistic estate was destroyed or damaged by executors, and the remainders were belatedly salvaged by a former Eakins student. For more details, see the article " List of works by Thomas Eakins". On November 11, 2006, the board of trustees at Thomas Jefferson University agreed to sell ''The Gross Clinic'' to the
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...
in Washington DC, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas for a record $68,000,000, the highest price for an Eakins painting as well as a record price for an individual American-made portrait. On December 21, 2006, a group of donors agreed to match the price to keep the painting in Philadelphia. It is displayed alternately at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.


Assessment

On October 29, 1917, Robert Henri wrote an open letter to the Art Students League about Eakins: In 1982, in his two-volume Eakins biography, art historian
Lloyd Goodrich Lloyd Goodrich (July 10, 1897March 27, 1987) was an American art historian. He wrote extensively on American artists, including Edward Hopper, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Raphael Soyer and Reginald Marsh. He was associated with the Whitney Museu ...
wrote:
In spite of limitations—and what artist is free of them?—Eakins' achievement was monumental. He was our first major painter to accept completely the realities of contemporary urban America, and from them to create powerful, profound art... In portraiture alone Eakins was the strongest American painter since Copley, with equal substance and power, and added penetration, depth, and subtlety.
John Canaday John Edwin Canaday (February 1, 1907 – July 19, 1985) was a leading American art critic, author and art historian. Early life and education John Canaday was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, to Franklin and Agnes F. (Musson) Canaday. His family mov ...
, art critic for '' The New York Times'', wrote in 1964:
As a supreme realist, Eakins appeared heavy and vulgar to a public that thought of art, and culture in general, largely in terms of a graceful sentimentality. Today he seems to us to have recorded his fellow Americans with a perception that was often as tender as it was vigorous, and to have preserved for us the essence of an American life which, indeed, he did not idealize—because it seemed to him beautiful beyond the necessity of idealization.
In 2010, the American painter Philip Pearlstein published an article in ''ARTnews'' suggesting the strong influences Eadweard Muybridge's work and public lectures had on 20th-century artists, including Degas,
Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...
, Seurat, Duchamp, and Eakins, either directly or through the contemporaneous work of their fellow photographic pioneer, Étienne-Jules Marey. He concluded:
I believe that both Muybridge and Eakins—as a photographer—should be recognized as among the most influential art­ists on the ideas of 20th-century art, along with Cézanne, whose lessons in fractured vision provided the technical basis for putting those ideas together.


See also

* List of painters by name beginning with "E" * List of American artists before 1900 *
List of people from Philadelphia The following is a list of notable people presently or previously associated with the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Academia * Joseph Addison Alexander (1809–1860), former clergyman and biblical scholar *E. Digby Baltzell (1915–1996) ...
* Visual art of the United States


Notes


Further reading

* Adams, Henry: ''Eakins Revealed: The Secret Life of an American Artist''. Oxford University Press, 2005. . * Berger, Martin: ''Man Made: Thomas Eakins and the Construction of Gilded Age Manhood''. University of California Press, 2000. . * Brown, Dotty: ''Boathouse Row: Waves of Change in the Birthplace of American Rowing''. Temple University Press, 2017. . * Canaday, John: Thomas Eakins; "Familiar truths in clear and beautiful language", ''Horizon''. Volume VI, Number 4, Autumn 1964. * Dacey, Philip: The Mystery of Max Schmitt, Poems on the Life of Thomas Eakins". Turning Point Press, 2004. * Doyle, Jennifer: "Sex, Scandal, and 'The Gross Clinic'". Representations 68 (Fall 1999): 1–33. * * Goodrich, Lloyd: ''Thomas Eakins''. Harvard University Press, 1982. * Homer, William Innes: ''Thomas Eakins: His Life and Art''. Abbeville Press, 1992. * Johns, Elizabeth: ''Thomas Eakins''. Princeton University Press, 1991. * Kirkpatrick, Sidney:'' The Revenge of Thomas Eakins''. Yale University Press, 2006. . * Lubin, David:'' Acts of Portrayal: Eakins, Sargeant, James''. Yale University Press, 1985. * Sewell, Darrel; et al. ''Thomas Eakins''. Yale University Press, 2001. * Sewell, Darrel: ''Thomas Eakins: Artist of Philadelphia''. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1982. * Sullivan, Mark W. "Thomas Eakins and His Portrait of Father Fedigan," ''Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia'', Vol. 109, No. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 1998), pp. 1–23. * Updike, John: ''Still Looking: Essays on American Art''. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. * Weinberg, H. Barbara: ''Thomas Eakins and the Metropolitan Museum of Art''. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994. Publication no: 885-660 * Werbel, Amy: ''Thomas Eakins: Art, Medicine, and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia''. Yale University Press, 2007. . * ''The Paris Letters of Thomas Eakins''. Edited by William Innes Homer. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2009, * Braddock, Alan: ''Thomas Eakins and The Cultures of Modernity''. University of California Press, 2009. * (see index)


External links


Thomaseakins.org
148 works by Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins Exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thomas Eakins letters online at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art

Selections from the Seymour Adelman collection, 1845–1958
features a collection of documents relating to Eakins and his family from the Archives of American Art
Works by Thomas Eakins at Bryn Mawr College
* Documentary film broadcast on PBS network in 2002 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Eakins, Thomas 1844 births 1916 deaths 19th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American painters American agnostics American people of Dutch descent American people of English descent American people of Scotch-Irish descent Central High School (Philadelphia) alumni Drexel University faculty Gilded Age Realist painters Artists from Philadelphia Art Students League of New York faculty Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts faculty American alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts American expatriates in France Schuylkill River National Academy of Design members American portrait painters 20th-century American sculptors 19th-century American sculptors 19th-century male artists American male sculptors Burials at The Woodlands Cemetery Painters from Pennsylvania Sculptors from Pennsylvania Nude photography Photographers from Pennsylvania 19th-century American photographers 20th-century American photographers Sculptors from New York (state) Olympic competitors in art competitions