Eakins, Thomas

From New World Encyclopedia
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'''Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins''' (July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was a [[Painting|painter]], [[Photography|photographer]], [[Sculpture|sculptor]], and fine arts educator. He was one of the greatest American painters of his time, an innovating [[teacher]], and an uncompromising [[realism |realist]]. He was also the most neglected major painter of his era in the [[United States]].<ref>Goodrich, Lloyd: ''Thomas Eakins'', Volume I, page vii. Harvard University Press, 1982.</ref> Eakins worked upheld values of sincerity and truth, displaying one's character in its truest form without presumed beauty and affectation. Indeed, the originiality and individuality of his subjects were his idea of beauty.  Such standards put him at odds with other artists of his time, which explains his only presently considered status as a great American artist.  
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'''Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins''' (July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was a [[Painting|painter]], [[Photography|photographer]], [[Sculpture|sculptor]], and fine arts educator. He was one of the greatest American painters of his time, an innovating [[teacher]], and an uncompromising [[realism |realist]]. He was also the most neglected major painter of his era in the [[United States]].<ref>Goodrich, Lloyd: ''Thomas Eakins'', Volume I, page vii. Harvard University Press, 1982.</ref>
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Eakins worked upheld values of sincerity and [[truth]], by displaying the subject's character in its truest form without presumed beauty and affectation. Indeed, the originiality and individuality of his subjects were the expression of his concept of [[beauty]].  Such standards put him at odds with other artists of his time, which explains his only presently considered status as a great American artist.  
  
  
 
==Early life==
 
==Early life==
Eakins was born and lived most of his life in [[Philadelphia]]. He was the first child of Caroline and Benjamin Eakins, who moved to Philadelphia from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in the early 1840's to raise their family. Benjamin was a writing master and calligraphy teacher of Scots-Irish ancestry, <ref>Goodrich, Volume I, pages 1-4.</ref> and so influenced his son Thomas, who by age 12 demonstrated skill in precise line drawing, perspective, and the use of a grid to lay out a careful design<ref>Amy B. Werbel, ''Thomas Eakins'', Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, ISBN 0-87633-142-8, p. 5</ref>
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Eakins was born and lived most of his life in [[Philadelphia]]. He was the first child of Caroline and Benjamin Eakins, who moved to Philadelphia from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in the early 1840's to raise their family. Benjamin was a writing master and [[calligraphy]] teacher of Scots-Irish ancestry, <ref>Goodrich, Volume I, pages 1-4.</ref> and so influenced his son Thomas, who by age 12 demonstrated skill in precise line drawing, perspective, and the use of a grid to lay out a careful design<ref>Amy B. Werbel, ''Thomas Eakins'', Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, ISBN 0-87633-142-8, p. 5</ref>
  
Eakins studied drawing and anatomy at the [[Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts]] beginning in 1861, and attended courses in anatomy and dissection at Jefferson Medical College from 1864-65. For a while, he followed his father's profession and was listed in city directories as a "writing teacher".<ref>Amy B. Werbel, p.10</ref> His scientific interest in the human body led him to consider becoming a surgeon.<ref>Canaday, John: "Thomas Eakins; Familiar truths in clear and beautiful language," ''Horizon'', page 96. Volume VI, number 4, Autumn, 1964.</ref> 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]].<ref>H. Barbara Weinberg, ''Thomas Eakins'', Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, ISBN 0-87633-142-8, p. 15</ref> He also attended the atelier of [[Léon Bonnat]], a realist painter who emphasized anatomical preciseness, a method adapted by Eakins. While studying at [[École des Beaux-Arts|L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts]], he seems to have taken scant interest in the new [[Impressionist]] movement, nor was he impressed by what he perceived as the classical pretensions of the [[French Academy]].  
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Eakins studied drawing and anatomy at the [[Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts]] beginning in 1861, and attended courses in [[anatomy]] and dissection at Jefferson Medical College from 1864-65. For a while, he followed his father's profession and was listed in city directories as a "writing teacher".<ref>Amy B. Werbel, p.10</ref> His scientific interest in the human body led him to consider becoming a [[surgery|surgeon]].<ref>Canaday, John: "Thomas Eakins; Familiar truths in clear and beautiful language," ''Horizon'', page 96. Volume VI, number 4, Autumn, 1964.</ref> 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]].<ref>H. Barbara Weinberg, ''Thomas Eakins'', Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, ISBN 0-87633-142-8, p. 15</ref> He also attended the atelier of [[Léon Bonnat]], a realist painter who emphasized anatomical preciseness, a method adapted by Eakins. While studying at [[École des Beaux-Arts|L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts]], he seems to have taken scant interest in the new [[Impressionism|Impressionist]] movement, nor was he impressed by what he perceived as the classical pretensions of the [[French Academy]].  
  
 
By age 24, he developed a strong desire for realistic artistic depictions of both anatomy and emotion.  
 
By age 24, he developed a strong desire for realistic artistic depictions of both anatomy and emotion.  
 
A trip to Spain for six months confirmed his admiration for the realism of artists such as [[Diego Velázquez]] and [[Jusepe de Ribera]].<ref>''Spanish work [is] so good so strong so reasonable so free from every affectation. It stands out like nature itself...'' Updike, page 72.</ref> In [[Seville]] in 1870 he painted ''Carmelita Requeña'', a portrait of a seven year old gypsy dancer more freely and colorfully painted than his Paris studies, and in the same year 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.<ref>Homer, page 44.</ref>Although he failed to matriculate and showed no works in the 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.<ref>H. Barbara Weinberg, p. 23</ref>
 
A trip to Spain for six months confirmed his admiration for the realism of artists such as [[Diego Velázquez]] and [[Jusepe de Ribera]].<ref>''Spanish work [is] so good so strong so reasonable so free from every affectation. It stands out like nature itself...'' Updike, page 72.</ref> In [[Seville]] in 1870 he painted ''Carmelita Requeña'', a portrait of a seven year old gypsy dancer more freely and colorfully painted than his Paris studies, and in the same year 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.<ref>Homer, page 44.</ref>Although he failed to matriculate and showed no works in the 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.<ref>H. Barbara Weinberg, p. 23</ref>
[[Image:eakins.jpg|thumb|300px|right|''Max Schmitt in a single scull'' (1871), [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], New York.]]  
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[[Image:eakins.jpg|thumb|300px|right|''Max Schmitt in a single scull'' (1871), [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], New York.]]
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==Work==
 
==Work==
  
For the length of his professional career, from the early 1870s until his health began to fail some forty years later, Eakins worked exactingly from life, choosing as his subject the people of his hometown of [[Philadelphia]]. He painted several hundred [[portrait]]s, 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 Philadelphia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; individually, they are incisive depictions of thinking persons. As well, Eakins produced a number of large paintings which 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 which 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.
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For the length of his professional career, from the early 1870s until his health began to fail some forty years later, Eakins worked exactingly from life, choosing as his subject the people of his hometown of [[Philadelphia]]. He painted several hundred [[portraiture|portrait]]s, usually of friends, family members, or prominent people in the [[fine arts|arts]], sciences, [[medicine]], and [[clergy]]. Taken en masse, the portraits offer an  overview of the intellectual life of Philadelphia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; individually, they are incisive depictions of thinking persons. As well, Eakins produced a number of large paintings which 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 which 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's first works upon his return from Europe in 1870 included a large group of rowing scenes, eleven oils and watercolors in all, of which the first and most famous is ''The Champion Single Sculling'', known also as ''Max Schmitt in a Single Scull'' (1871). Both his subject and his technique drew attention. His selection of a contemporary sport was “a shock to the artistic conventionalities of the city”. <ref>Marc Simpson, ''Thomas Eakins'', Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, ISBN 0-87633-142-8, p. 28</ref>  
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Eakins's first works upon his return from [[Europe]] in 1870 included a large group of rowing scenes, eleven oils and [[watercolor painting|watercolor]]s in all, of which the first and most famous is ''The Champion Single Sculling'', known also as ''Max Schmitt in a Single Scull'' (1871). Both his subject and his technique drew attention. His selection of a contemporary sport was “a shock to the artistic conventionalities of the city”. <ref>Marc Simpson, ''Thomas Eakins'', Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, ISBN 0-87633-142-8, p. 28</ref>  
  
 
[[Image:EakinsTheGrossClinic.jpg|left|thumb|240px|''[[The Gross Clinic]].'' According to one prescient reviewer in 1876: ''This portrait of Dr. Gross is a great work—we know of nothing greater that has ever been executed in America''.<ref>Cited in Sewell, page 43.</ref> ]]  
 
[[Image:EakinsTheGrossClinic.jpg|left|thumb|240px|''[[The Gross Clinic]].'' According to one prescient reviewer in 1876: ''This portrait of Dr. Gross is a great work—we know of nothing greater that has ever been executed in America''.<ref>Cited in Sewell, page 43.</ref> ]]  
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[[Image:eakins cook.jpg|thumb|right|260px|"Portrait of Maud Cook" (1895), Yale University Art Gallery.]]
 
[[Image:eakins cook.jpg|thumb|right|260px|"Portrait of Maud Cook" (1895), Yale University Art Gallery.]]
  
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 (1903), and Monsignor James P. Turner (ca. 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.
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Some of his most vivid portraits resulted from a late series done for the [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]] clergy, which included paintings of a cardinal, archbishops, [[bishop]]s, 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 (1903), and Monsignor James P. Turner (ca. 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.
  
 
===Teaching===
 
===Teaching===
No less important in Eakins' life was his work as a teacher.  He returned to the Pennsylvania Academy in 1876 where he taught and rose to the position of director by 1882.  Eakins gave only terse instruction to his students, allowing them to learn from example and find their own way.  Most notable was his delight in teaching depiction of the human form, which involved studies of nude models and casts made from dissections.  In addition, Eakins encouraged students to take up photography as aid to anatomy and study of motion.  He himself took keen interest in this new technology, adapting paintings from prints he took and creating series on aspects of the human form. Eakins is now seen as an innovator of motion photography.       
+
No less important in Eakins' life was his work as a [[teacher]].  He returned to the Pennsylvania Academy in 1876 where he taught and rose to the position of director by 1882.  Eakins gave only terse instruction to his students, allowing them to learn from example and find their own way.  Most notable was his delight in teaching depiction of the human form, which involved studies of nude models and casts made from dissections.  In addition, Eakins encouraged students to take up photography as aid to anatomy and study of motion.  He himself took keen interest in this new technology, adapting paintings from prints he took and creating series on aspects of the human form. Eakins is now seen as an innovator of motion photography.       
  
 
Behavorial and sexual controversy shaped much of his career.  He insisted on teaching men and women "the same," used nude models in mixed-sex classes, and was accused of abusing female students.  Some accounts include posing nude for a female student in a private setting and pulling the loin cloth from a male model in a classroom full of females.  Today, scholars see these controversies as 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), and Eakins's inclination toward provocative behavior.
 
Behavorial and sexual controversy shaped much of his career.  He insisted on teaching men and women "the same," used nude models in mixed-sex classes, and was accused of abusing female students.  Some accounts include posing nude for a female student in a private setting and pulling the loin cloth from a male model in a classroom full of females.  Today, scholars see these controversies as 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), and Eakins's inclination toward provocative behavior.
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Misunderstood and ignored in his lifetime, his posthumous reputation places him as "the strongest, most profound realist in nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century American art".<ref>Goodrich, Volume II, page 285.</ref>
 
Misunderstood and ignored in his lifetime, his posthumous reputation places him as "the strongest, most profound realist in nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century American art".<ref>Goodrich, Volume II, page 285.</ref>
  
Deeply affected by his dismissal from the Academy, Eakins's later career focused on portraiture. His steadfast insistence on his own vision of realism, in addition to his notoriety from his school scandals, combined to impact his income negatively 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. [60] 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.[61]
+
Deeply affected by his dismissal from the Academy, Eakins's later career focused on [[portraiture]]. His steadfast insistence on his own vision of [[realism]], in addition to his notoriety from his school scandals, combined to impact his income negatively 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. [60] 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.[61]
  
 
Late in life Eakins did experience some recognition. In 1902 he was made a [[National Academy of Design|National Academician]]. In 1914 the sale of a portrait study of D. Hayes Agnew for the ''Agnew Clinic'' to Dr. [[Albert C. Barnes]] precipitated much publicity when rumors circulated that the selling price was fifty thousand dollars. In fact, Barnes bought the painting for four thousand dollars.<ref>Homer, page 249.</ref>  
 
Late in life Eakins did experience some recognition. In 1902 he was made a [[National Academy of Design|National Academician]]. In 1914 the sale of a portrait study of D. Hayes Agnew for the ''Agnew Clinic'' to Dr. [[Albert C. Barnes]] precipitated much publicity when rumors circulated that the selling price was fifty thousand dollars. In fact, Barnes bought the painting for four thousand dollars.<ref>Homer, page 249.</ref>  
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Since the 1990s, Eakins has emerged as a major figure in sexuality studies in art history, for both the [[homoeroticism]] of his work and for the complexity of his attitudes toward women.   
 
Since the 1990s, Eakins has emerged as a major figure in sexuality studies in art history, for both the [[homoeroticism]] of his work and for the complexity of his attitudes toward women.   
  
On November 11, 2006 the Board of Trustees at [[Thomas Jefferson University]] agreed to sell ''The Gross Clinic'' to the [[National Gallery of Art]] in [[Washington, D.C.]], 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.<ref>Shattuck, Kathryn. ''Got Medicare? A $68 Million Operation''. New York Times, November 19, 2006. [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/arts/design/19shat.html?ex=1321592400&en=a8afee83b90ae480&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss.]  Retrieved on 2007-03-31. </ref> On December 21, 2006, a group of donors agreed to pay $68,000,000 in order to keep the painting in Philadelphia. It will be displayed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
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On November 11, 2006 the Board of Trustees at [[Thomas Jefferson University]] agreed to sell ''The Gross Clinic'' to the [[National Gallery of Art]] in [[Washington, D.C.]], 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.<ref>Shattuck, Kathryn. ''Got Medicare? A $68 Million Operation''. New York Times, November 19, 2006. [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/arts/design/19shat.html?ex=1321592400&en=a8afee83b90ae480&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss.]  Retrieved on 2007-03-31. </ref> On December 21, 2006, a group of donors agreed to pay $68,000,000 in order to keep the painting in Philadelphia. It will be displayed at the [[Philadelphia Museum of Art]] and the [[Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts]].
 +
 
 
==Gallery==
 
==Gallery==
 
<gallery>
 
<gallery>

Revision as of 14:59, 11 December 2007

Thomas Eakins
Eakins selfportrait.jpg
Self portrait (1902), National Academy of Design, New York.

In 1894 the artist wrote: "My honors are misunderstanding, persecution & neglect, enhanced because unsought." [1]

Birth name Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins
Born July 25 1844(1844-07-25)
Philadelphia
Died June 25 1916 (aged 71)
Philadelphia
Nationality American
Field Painting
Training Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, École des Beaux-Arts
Movement Realism
Famous works Max Schmitt in a Single Scull, 1871, The Gross Clinic, 1875, The Agnew Clinic, 1889
Awards National Academician

Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was a painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He was one of the greatest American painters of his time, an innovating teacher, and an uncompromising realist. He was also the most neglected major painter of his era in the United States.[2]

Eakins worked upheld values of sincerity and truth, by displaying the subject's character in its truest form without presumed beauty and affectation. Indeed, the originiality and individuality of his subjects were the expression of his concept of beauty. Such standards put him at odds with other artists of his time, which explains his only presently considered status as a great American artist.


Early life

Eakins was born and lived most of his life in Philadelphia. He was the first child of Caroline and Benjamin Eakins, who moved to Philadelphia from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in the early 1840's to raise their family. Benjamin was a writing master and calligraphy teacher of Scots-Irish ancestry, [3] and so influenced his son Thomas, who by age 12 demonstrated skill in precise line drawing, perspective, and the use of a grid to lay out a careful design[4]

Eakins studied drawing and anatomy at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts beginning in 1861, and attended courses in anatomy and dissection at Jefferson Medical College from 1864-65. For a while, he followed his father's profession and was listed in city directories as a "writing teacher".[5] His scientific interest in the human body led him to consider becoming a surgeon.[6] 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.[7] He also attended the atelier of Léon Bonnat, a realist painter who emphasized anatomical preciseness, a method adapted by Eakins. While studying at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he seems to have taken scant interest in the new Impressionist movement, nor was he impressed by what he perceived as the classical pretensions of the French Academy.

By age 24, he developed a strong desire for realistic artistic depictions of both anatomy and emotion. A trip to Spain for six months confirmed his admiration for the realism of artists such as Diego Velázquez and Jusepe de Ribera.[8] In Seville in 1870 he painted Carmelita Requeña, a portrait of a seven year old gypsy dancer more freely and colorfully painted than his Paris studies, and in the same year 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.[9]Although he failed to matriculate and showed no works in the 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.[10]

File:Eakins.jpg
Max Schmitt in a single scull (1871), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Work

For the length of his professional career, from the early 1870s until his health began to fail some forty 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 Philadelphia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; individually, they are incisive depictions of thinking persons. As well, Eakins produced a number of large paintings which 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 which 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's first works upon his return from Europe in 1870 included a large group of rowing scenes, eleven oils and watercolors in all, of which the first and most famous is The Champion Single Sculling, known also as Max Schmitt in a Single Scull (1871). Both his subject and his technique drew attention. His selection of a contemporary sport was “a shock to the artistic conventionalities of the city”. [11]

The Gross Clinic. According to one prescient reviewer in 1876: This portrait of Dr. Gross is a great work—we know of nothing greater that has ever been executed in America.[12]

Eakins enjoyed painting portraits as an opportunity to reveal the character of an individual through the modeling of solid anatomical form.[13] Although artistically accomplished, he was not so commercially and received only a few commissions on his more thatn 250 portraits."[14] Indeed, his lack of sales may be explained by his preference for realism and uniqueness of character instead of pretension and dramatization in the depictions of his subjects. In The Gross Clinic (1875), a renowned Philadelphia surgeon, Dr. Samuel D. Gross, 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. 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 Exhibition 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.

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, including his portrait of Maud Cook (1895), where the obvious beauty of the subject is noted with "a stark objectivity". Miss Amelia C. Van Buren, ca. 1890The portrait of Miss Amelia C. Van Buren (ca. 1890), a friend and former pupil, suggests the melancholy of a complex personality, and has been called "the finest of all American portraits".[57] Even Susan Macdowell Eakins, a strong painter and former student who married Eakins in 1884,[58] was not sentimentalized: despite its richness of color, The Artist's Wife and His Setter Dog (ca. 1884-89) is a penetratingly candid portrait.[59]

"Portrait of Maud Cook" (1895), Yale University Art Gallery.

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 (1903), and Monsignor James P. Turner (ca. 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.

Teaching

No less important in Eakins' life was his work as a teacher. He returned to the Pennsylvania Academy in 1876 where he taught and rose to the position of director by 1882. Eakins gave only terse instruction to his students, allowing them to learn from example and find their own way. Most notable was his delight in teaching depiction of the human form, which involved studies of nude models and casts made from dissections. In addition, Eakins encouraged students to take up photography as aid to anatomy and study of motion. He himself took keen interest in this new technology, adapting paintings from prints he took and creating series on aspects of the human form. Eakins is now seen as an innovator of motion photography.

Behavorial and sexual controversy shaped much of his career. He insisted on teaching men and women "the same," used nude models in mixed-sex classes, and was accused of abusing female students. Some accounts include posing nude for a female student in a private setting and pulling the loin cloth from a male model in a classroom full of females. Today, scholars see these controversies as 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), and Eakins's inclination toward provocative behavior.

Legacy

Misunderstood and ignored in his lifetime, his posthumous reputation places him as "the strongest, most profound realist in nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century American art".[15]

Deeply affected by his dismissal from the Academy, Eakins's later career focused on portraiture. His steadfast insistence on his own vision of realism, in addition to his notoriety from his school scandals, combined to impact his income negatively 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. [60] 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.[61]

Late in life Eakins did experience some recognition. In 1902 he was made a National Academician. In 1914 the sale of a portrait study of D. Hayes Agnew for the Agnew Clinic to Dr. Albert C. Barnes precipitated much publicity when rumors circulated that the selling price was fifty thousand dollars. In fact, Barnes bought the painting for four thousand dollars.[16]

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. Eakins's attitude toward realism 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 artistic heirs to Eakins' philosophy.[17] 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 of his work and for the complexity of his attitudes toward women.

On November 11, 2006 the Board of Trustees at Thomas Jefferson University agreed to sell The Gross Clinic to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., 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.[18] On December 21, 2006, a group of donors agreed to pay $68,000,000 in order to keep the painting in Philadelphia. It will be displayed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Gallery

Notes

  1. Sewell, Darrel: Thomas Eakins: Artist of Philadelphia, page xvi. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1982.
  2. Goodrich, Lloyd: Thomas Eakins, Volume I, page vii. Harvard University Press, 1982.
  3. Goodrich, Volume I, pages 1-4.
  4. Amy B. Werbel, Thomas Eakins, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, ISBN 0-87633-142-8, p. 5
  5. Amy B. Werbel, p.10
  6. Canaday, John: "Thomas Eakins; Familiar truths in clear and beautiful language," Horizon, page 96. Volume VI, number 4, Autumn, 1964.
  7. H. Barbara Weinberg, Thomas Eakins, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, ISBN 0-87633-142-8, p. 15
  8. Spanish work [is] so good so strong so reasonable so free from every affectation. It stands out like nature itself... Updike, page 72.
  9. Homer, page 44.
  10. H. Barbara Weinberg, p. 23
  11. Marc Simpson, Thomas Eakins, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001, ISBN 0-87633-142-8, p. 28
  12. Cited in Sewell, page 43.
  13. Goodrich, Volume II, pages 57-8.
  14. Goodrich, Volume II, pages 58-9.
  15. Goodrich, Volume II, page 285.
  16. Homer, page 249.
  17. Goodrich, Volume II, page 309.
  18. Shattuck, Kathryn. Got Medicare? A $68 Million Operation. New York Times, November 19, 2006. [1] Retrieved on 2007-03-31.

References
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  • Adams, Henry: Eakins Revealed: The Secret Life of an American Artist. Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 0195156684.
  • Canaday, John: Thomas Eakins; "Familiar truths in clear and beautiful language," Horizon. Volume VI, Number 4, Autumn 1964.
  • Goodrich, Lloyd: Thomas Eakins. Harvard University Press, 1982. ISBN 0-674-88490-6
  • Homer, William Innes: Thomas Eakins: His Life and Art. Abbeville Press, 1992. ISBN 1-55859-281-4
  • Johns, Elizabeth: Thomas Eakins. Princeton University Press, 1991. ISBN 0691002886
  • Kirkpatrick, Sidney: The Revenge of Thomas Eakins. Yale University Press, 2006. ISBN 0300108559.
  • Lubin, David: Acts of Portrayal: Eakins, Sargeant, James. Yale University Press, 1985. ISBN 0300032137
  • Sewell, Darrel: Thomas Eakins: Artist of Philadelphia. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1982. ISBN 0-87633-047-2
  • Updike, John: Still Looking: Essays on American Art. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-4418-9
  • 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. ISBN 9780300116557.

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