Eakins, Thomas (Cowperthwait)

(1844–1916) painter, photographer, sculptor; born in Philadelphia. After studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1861–66), he studied in Paris (1866–70) under Jean Léon Gerôme. During his travels in Europe he was profoundly influenced by the Spanish painters, Velázquez and Ribera. He returned to Philadelphia (1870), and studied anatomy and dissections at Jefferson Medical College, a pursuit which strongly affected his work. He began teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy (1876) and created a crisis when he insisted on using nude male models in the art classroom. When asked to use loincloths, he refused and resigned in 1886. He worked as a photographer, continuing his study of anatomy in a series of figure-motion studies, and as a sculptor, but he is remembered for his paintings. His work exhibits his mastery of observation and perspective, as well as his stylized but precise realism. Noted for his portraits, scenes of drama, and outdoor activities, such as Max Schmitt in a Single Scull (1871), The Clinic of Dr. Gross (1875), The Writing Master (1881), a portrait of his father, and The Swimming Hole (1884–85), he is honored for his unsentimental approach to humanity and nature. Recent exhibitions and newly discovered information concerning Eakins continue to reveal the life of this enigmatic and important artist.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Eakins, Thomas

Born July 25, 1844, in Philadelphia; died there June 25,1916. American painter.

Eakins studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and from 1866 to 1869 he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Eakins is the greatest American realist painter. He introduced into American painting themes from the life of the big city as well as an interest in various occupations, in people involved in art and science, and in sport, as seen in Max Schmitt in a Single Scull and The Thinker (1871 and 1900, respectively; both Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and in The Surgical Clinic of Professor Gross (1875, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia). Eakins combined strict objectivity and liveliness in depicting nature and the effects of light with profound psychological characterization (the portrait Walt Whitman, 1887, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts).

REFERENCE

Porter, F. Thomas Eakins. New York, 1959.

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

(9) Gordon Hendricks, Thomas Eakins: His Photographic Works, exh.

A painter's focus: the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has recently acquired 29 photographs by Cy Twombly. They reveal a little known aspect of his artistic activity, demonstrating both how the camera informed his work as a painter and how he came to embrace the photograph as an independent art form

Readers looking for a (nearly) comprehensive overview of Eakins's life and work will want to turn to the multi-authored book published to accompany "Thomas Eakins: American Realist," an exhibition that opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in October 2001.

Review essay: Grappling with "Big Painting": Akela Reason's Thomas Eakins and the Uses of History

Members have included luminaries such as Thomas Eakins, Howard Chandler Christy, Thomas Anshutz, Joseph Pennell, N.C.

The art of battle: a celebration of posters that inspired a nation through the "War to End All Wars"

Very late in his career, he was honored by Jefferson Medical College, which commissioned Thomas Eakins to paint his portrait.

Sins of our fathers: two of The Four Doctors and their roles in the development of techniques to permit covert autopsies

Also showing, through July 19: More Than Words: Illustrated Letters from the Archives of American Art, displaying 58 illustrated letters and notes from such artists as Thomas Eakins, Marcel Duchamp and Frida Kahlo.

Calendar

This fascinating and richly illustrated book explores the visual culture of religion in Gilded Age America through the careers of four important artists: Thomas Eakins, Henry Ossawa Tanner, E Holland Day, and Abbott Handerson Thayer.

Signs of Grace: Religion and American Art in the Gilded Age

Much of the collection relies heavily on these echoes of representation between the traditional arts and film as well as painterly influences that informed filmmakers (the Ashcan school and Thomas Eakins assume a central position in this collection) and the way 'moving pictures influenced' painters (this scenario, however, is less-often engaged due to lack of empirical data).

Nancy Mowll Mathews, with Charles Musser, Moving Pictures: American Art and Early Film, 1880-1910

Osler (1849-1919), the most influential physician of his time, treated Walt Whitman and counted Mark Twain and Thomas Eakins among his friends.

Sir William Osler; medical humanist

Nevertheless, he enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied with Thomas Eakins (2).

Artistic light and capturing the immeasurable

Yet these objects easily reclaim their complexity through their conceptual exchange with another unlikely predecessor, Thomas Eakins's Study for the Crucifixion (1880), which applies black not so much as metaphor for the infinite as rather for the inexpressible present.

The Uncertainty of Recent Sculpture: Two Allegories

The specially designed posters, representing diverse media and artistic movements, will include masterworks by George Bellows, Dawoud Bey, Thomas Eakins, Claude Monet, Pierre August Renoir, Peter Paul Rubens Augusta Savage and others, as well as artifacts including the museum's oldest object, Stargazer, portraying a 5,000-year-old woman; an 18th century Chinese scroll; a 10th century Islamic jug; and a 14th century table fountain.

Starbucks and CMA serve up art