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<h1>Introduction</h1>
<p>"Not a painter, but a force, " declared poet Walt Whitman of Thomas Eakins. Born in
Philadelphia in 1844, Eakins lived and worked in Philadelphia his entire life, apart from
four years of study in Europe. The city inspired many of his greatest works, from his
early paintings of oarsmen on the Schuylkill River to his now famous portraits of the
city's leading surgeons. A gifted teacher, Eakins taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts for roughly a decade, transforming it into the most advanced art school in
the nation.
</p>
<h1>1871</h1>
<h2>Champion Single Sculls, or Max Schmitt in a Single Scull</h2>
<p>This is the first painting Eakins ever exhibited. It was made just a year after he returned
from three years of traditional academic training with artist Jean-Léon Gérôme at the
prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In a triumph of academic technique, each
figure is meticulously painted and accurately proportioned. But in this painting and
throughout the rest of his 40-year career, Eakins diverged from the historical figures or
exotic settings preferred by many academic artists. Instead, Eakins depicted people and
subjects drawn from his own experiences in his native city of Philadelphia.</p>
<h3>The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, The Alfred N. Punnett Endowment Fund and George D. Pratt Gift, 1934</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1872</h1>
<h2>The Pair-Oared Shell & Perspective Drawings for The Pair-Oared Shell</h2>
<p>John Biglin and his younger brother Barney row in tandem along the Schuylkill River
one summer afternoon just before sunset. The faces of these professional oarsmen are
plunged in deep shadow. What little daylight remains, bounces off the surface of the
water near the leading oar as they glide gracefully past a heavy stone pier. Pair oaring is
the most difficult kind of rowing because each man has only one oar and has to
constantly maintain the balance of the boat. </p>
<p>
Eakins constructed his compositions with painstaking care. Eakins made a number of
meticulous <a href="1944-45-2.html" target="mainFrame">perspective drawings</a> for this picture. The painting that resulted is so accurate,
scholars were able to determine the precise length of the boat and to pinpoint the exact
time of day to 7:20 p.m. Eakins actually wrote an entire textbook on the subject of linear
perspective, though it was never published. His well-known command of perspective was
matched by a less known, but equally rigorous quest to record natural light faithfully.</p>
<h3>The Pair-Oared Shell, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Mrs. Thomas Eakins and Miss Mary Adeline Williams, 1929</h3>
<h3>Perspective Drawing for “The Pair-Oared Shell", Philadelphia Museum of Art. Purchased with the Thomas Skelton HarrisonFund, 1944></h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1874</h1>
<h2>Sailboats Racing on the Delaware</h2>
<p>
Look closely at the sailboat in the center of this picture. Three sailors lean out of it to
counteract the tilt of the boat in the strong breeze. Notice the crispness of the boat's
features. It is well known that Eakins took photographs as studies for many of his
paintings. This helps explain the remarkable precision he achieved in depicting objects
constantly in motion, like these boats on the Delaware River. But when conservators at
the Philadelphia Museum recently examined his paintings, they discovered that Eakins
actually projected photographs directly onto canvases. In this painting, the center boat
and far right boat were painted using projections. Compare the precision of their
rendering to the other boats on the river. Occasionally Eakins projected images to trace
the outline of a complicated form. More often, though, as in this painting, Eakins created
microscopic reference points from the projections.</p>
<h3>Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Mrs. Thomas Eakins and Miss Mary Adeline Williams, 1929
Frame purchased with contributions made to the American Art Frame Fund</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1875</h1>
<h2>The Gross Clinic</h2>
<p>In the center of this large, dramatic canvas stands Dr. Samuel Gross--one of
Philadelphia's most respected surgeons. Dr. Gross is shown here in a teaching clinic at
Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He pauses for a moment during surgery to
instruct his students. His right hand holds a scalpel and is covered in fresh blood.
Bright light draws our attention to his commanding face, and to the operating table
beside him. There lies a young patient, still wearing his gray socks. Blood spills from
his thigh as other physicians help Dr. Gross perform a sophisticated operation to treat a
rare bone disease. Eakins himself observes the event--you can just make him out in the
audience on the far right, taking notes.</p>
<p>Eakins hoped this impressive painting would establish his reputation as an artist. He
submitted it to be included in the important 1876 Centennial exhibition held in
Philadelphia to celebrate America's first 100 years. Many critics and viewers responded,
however, with disgust--reacting like the patient's mother, seated on the left side of the
painting, shielding her eyes from the gruesome scene. The Centennial Art jury rejected
the painting, though they accepted several others by Eakins. The Gross Clinic was
ultimately hung in the medical section of the exhibition, far from the art galleries where it
belonged. Several years later, many still objected to the painting--a New York Times critic
described it as "revolting to the last degree." Today, however, The Gross Clinic is widely
recognized as one of the greatest achievements of American art.</p>
<h3>Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1876</h1>
<h2>Baby at Play</h2>
<p>Although he married in 1884, Eakins never had children of his own. He was especially
close to his numerous nieces and nephews as a result. This painting shows Eakins's
young niece, Ella Crowell, carefully assembles building blocks. But this unsentimental
portrait is not a showcase for the importance of familial bonds. Eakins underscores the
picture's more serious nature by making the canvas large but also by his manipulation of
light. Instead of brightly illuminating his niece's sweet features, Eakins casts her face in
deep shadow and gives her a serious, focused expression. She is oblivious to the artist,
absorbed by the quiet pleasures of learning and discovery.</p>
<h3>National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. John Hay Whitney Collection</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1877</h1>
<h2>William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill</h2>
<p>
On the left side of this painting, William Rush, an early 19th century American sculptor,
chips away at a wood statue in his studio. Eakins greatly admired this Philadelphia artist,
who began his career as a carver of ship figureheads. In the lower left corner, you can
see an example of one of his ship carvings. Eakins made a wider range of studies for this
painting of William Rush than any of his other works. But in spite of his scrupulous
attention to detail, Eakins altered one major fact. In Rush's sculpture the woman is
clothed. The young woman posing in Eakins painting, however, is clearly nude—the
beautifully painted pile of clothes draped over a nearby chair underscores this fact. In
Eakins' day, a female relative often served as a chaperone to any young woman who
posed nude. The elderly woman seated in the Chippendale chair served as this model's
chaperone. In the early 19th century, however, when Rush made his sculpture, it would
have been extremely unlikely for any American artist to use an actual nude female model.
Why did Eakins distort the facts? One answer may be that he had just begun teaching at
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. At the Academy, Eakins placed great
emphasis on drawing nude models to study the human form. So here Eakins alters history
a bit to support his own interests.</p>
<h3>Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Mrs. Thomas Eakins and Miss Mary Adeline Williams, 1929</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1879</h1>
<h2>A May Morning in the Park, or Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand</h2>
<p>A bright red parasol provides shade for a May morning coach ride through Philadelphia's
Fairmount Park. Fairman Rogers, a prominent Philadelphian, directs his coach, led by
his prize mare, Josephine. Rogers was a wealthy, forward thinking man--one of the first
in Philadelphia to own a four-in-hand coach. He was also an important champion of
Eakins. He commissioned this painting from the artist, paying Eakins a sum that far
surpassed anything he had previously received. And as a member of the Pennsylvania
Academy's Committee of Instruction, Rogers was partly responsible for Eakins's
appointment as a full-time professor in 1879--the year Eakins made this painting. Notice
how each of the horses' legs is different. Eakins modeled their positions after
groundbreaking photographs of horses in motion made by British photographer Eadweard
Muybridge.</p>
<h3>Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of William Alexander Dick, 1930</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1880 (cast 1930)</h1>
<h2>Anatomical Casts, Bronze</h2><br>
<p>
Eakins and his students cast this torso from a cadaver in order to study the human body.
The original was made of plaster in 1880 and only later cast in the bronze you see here.
By 1880, Eakins had transformed the Pennsylvania Academy into the most progressive
art school in the nation. His curriculum emphasized the study of the human body more
rigorously and thoroughly than any other art school in America or abroad. Before his
tenure, the Academy offered occasional lectures on anatomy. Eakins made anatomy
mandatory and held classes two evenings a week. And in an unprecedented and
controversial move, he offered dissection to advanced pupils. In these classes, students
dissected human and animal cadavers to create plaster casts of body parts, such as the
torso we see here. A journalist at the time declared: "Exhaustive is a faint word by
which to characterize such instruction." Not surprisingly, conservative parents, critics,
and members of the Academy's board expressed concern about the direction in which
Eakins was taking the school.
</p>
<h3>Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of R. Sturgis Ingersoll, 1944</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1881</h1>
<h2>Mending The Net</h2>
<p>
Two Crowell Children, Margaret Eakins, and Frances Crowell on a Rooftop; Two
Men Under the Tree; Geese at Gloucester, New Jersey</p>
<p>In this painting, a man reads under a tree as fisherman quietly go about their task of
mending nets on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River. Eakins appears to have
captured a single moment in an ordinary day. In reality, though, this painting was
constructed from details captured in more than 30 photographs taken over several days
and in different places.</p>
<p>The fishermen on the hill were drawn from various candid shots, combined to appear as a
seamless group. The man sitting under the tree reading a newspaper is posed. Also posed
are the two young children. They were Eakins' nieces--photographed back on the roof of
the artist's home on Mt. Vernon Street in Philadelphia. Nearby you can see two of the
eighteen or more photographs Eakins took of geese. Even the long shutter speeds of
cameras at the time, Eakins must have spent a good part of a day chasing geese in order
to get so many pictures.</p>
<h3>Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Mrs. Thomas Eakins and Miss Mary Adeline Williams, 1929</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>c. 1884</h1>
<h2>Unidentified Black Man Sitting, Facing Right, photograph</h2>
<p>The identity of this African American man is a complete mystery.
Eakins featured blacks in many of his works. Emancipated black slaves
also served as models for his hunting and fishing pictures. Where other
artists might have enforced stereotypes, in all of his works, Eakins
depicted African Americans with dignity. Here, the sitter reflects
Eakins approach to portraiture. Dressed in casual garments, the sitter
projects neither material success nor social accomplishment, but rather
an inner psychology. Though his identity is unknown, his quiet,
self-assured expression provided one of Eakins’s richest portraits with
a camera.
</p>
<h3>Gilman Paper Company Collection
82.774</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1885</h1>
<h2>Motion Study: George Reynolds, nude, pole-vaulting to left</h2>
<p>
In this photograph, Eakins has dissected a second or two of time, breaking down
the fleeting motion of a single pole-vault into nine equal intervals. Eakins made
this photograph and other motion studies in the summer of 1885, inspired by the
work of British photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Muybridge had gained a
worldwide reputation for photographs of horses in motion, made possible by
shutter speeds that were astonishingly fast for the time. Acknowledging the
importance of these photographs, the University of Pennsylvania invited
Muybridge to continue his studies in Philadelphia. Eakins was immediately
appointed as one of the supervisors to the project. Eakins was excited by
Muybridge's area of study but quickly recognized its deficiencies. Muybridge had
frozen motion, but not at regular intervals. His photographs lacked scientific
precision. Eakins pointed out this problem to his colleague, but without results. So
in the summer of 1885 he devised his own experiments, to produce instructive and
measurable photographs like this one. Photography provided Eakins with yet
another way to better understand and render the human body in his art.
</p>
<h3>Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Charles Bregler's Thomas Eakins Collection, purchased with the partial support of The Pew Memorial Trust</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1887-88</h1>
<h2>Walt Whitman</h2>
<p>Eakins began this affectionate portrait of Walt Whitman in 1887, shortly after the two
became friends. Following his dismissal from the Academy in 1886, Eakins began to
concentrate on portraiture. To paint this tribute to his ailing friend, Eakins took the ferry
across the Delaware River to visit Whitman in his home in Camden, New Jersey. When
Whitman saw the painting, he described it as "not at first a pleasant version to me but the
more I get to realize it, the profounder seems its insight." Whitman later described it in a
letter as "a portrait of power and realism…A poor, old, blind, despised and dying king."
He hailed Eakins as one of the few artists "who could resist the temptation to see what
they thought ought to be, rather than what is."</p>
<p>Whitman shared Eakins's unapologetic interest in the human body. In Leaves of Grass,
Whitman declared, "I sing the Body Electric. If anything is sacred, the human body is
sacred." They also shared a close friendship--Eakins frequently visited Whitman in
Camden during the last few years of the poet's life. When Whitman died in 1892, Eakins
served as an honorary pallbearer at the funeral. As a final tribute to their friendship,
Eakins made casts of his friend's face, shoulders, and right hand.
</p>
<h3>Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. General Fund.</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1888</h1>
<h2>Cowboys in the Badlands</h2>
<p>
This landscape was inspired by a ten-week trip Eakins made to the Dakota Badlands in
the summer of 1887. The cowboys are loosely modeled after photographs Eakins took in
the Badlands. The horses are purchases from his trip. When he returned, the artist
photographed and sketched them at his sister's farm in Avondale, Pennsylvania. Eakins
went to the Badlands to recover from a devastating blow in his career, his dismissal from
the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in February of 1886. The trip to the Badlands
restored his energy and spirits. The poet Walt Whitman, who met Eakins shortly before
his trip, described Eakins as "run down and out of sorts" when he left, but "built up
miraculously" upon his return. Eakins's affection for the western landscape and his
reflective experience comes through in this quiet painting.</p>
<h3>Private Collection</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1889</h1>
<h2>The Agnew Clinic</h2>
<p>
This painting was one of the few commissions Eakins ever received. He was asked to
paint the distinguished surgeon, Dr. David Hayes Agnew, on the eve of his retirement
from teaching at the University of Pennsylvania's Medical School. Dr. Agnew's students
raised the 750 dollars Eakins was paid for the picture. Most artists would have only
painted Dr. Agnew, as the initial commission was intended to be, but Eakins was much
more ambitious. He depicts Dr. Agnew guiding the mastectomy of a young woman with
breast cancer. And he convinced the surgeon's students to pose for the work. By
depicting Dr. Agnew while teaching, Eakins once again underscores his deep conviction
in learning. As he did in the Gross Clinic, Eakins includes himself as an onlooker. His
wife, Susan, actually painted him in the lower right hand corner, listening as a doctor
whispers into his ear. The University of Pennsylvania features an image of this painting
on every medical student's diploma.</p>
<h3>University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1890-91</h1>
<h2>The Concert Singer</h2>
<p>Eakins's first full-length portrait of a woman presents the singer Weda Cook. Her chin is
raised so she can project her voice; her mouth open, in mid-song. Of the nearly two
dozen works of art Eakins devoted to the subject of music, this is his most ambitious
treatment of the theme. Weda Cook posed for this picture off and on for nearly two
years. At the beginning of each session, Eakins asked her to sing a portion of
Mendelssohn's oratorio, Elijah, which begins "O rest in the Lord." If you look down, you
can see that Eakins also carved the opening bars of this song into the frame. Eakins was
so committed to accuracy that he asked a well-known Philadelphia conductor to pose
holding the baton. But he also takes small liberties with reality by inserting a bouquet of
pink roses on the stage. Flowers are ordinarily presented at the end of a concert, but here
they lie on the stage as a permanent reminder of the public's recognition of the singer's
talents.</p>
<h3>Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Mrs. Thomas Eakins and Miss Mary Adeline Williams, 1929</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1895</h1>
<h2>Frank Hamilton Cushing</h2>
<p>Eakins invited one of the nation's most gifted and controversial anthropologists to pose
for this large, full-length portrait. Frank Hamilton Cushing was a famous expert on Zuni
culture. He studied the Native American tribe during an expedition to New Mexico
sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution. The trip was supposed to have lasted two
months, but Cushing stayed nearly five years. In an unorthodox move that brought him
great notoriety, Cushing lived with the Zunis. He became so accepted that the tribe
appointed him an honorary chief.</p>
<p>Cushing posed for this portrait in Eakins's studio. Eakins depicts the anthropologist in an
eclectic costume that Cushing assembled from a variety of sources after joining the tribe.
Behind him to the left is a spear propped against the wall next to his Zuni shield. In the
lower right-hand corner, a Zuni bowl rests on the edge of a small altar. The setting is a
kiva, an chamber excavated underground where the Zunis conducted ritual ceremonies.
Though Cushing is surrounded by artifacts from his greatest experience, his years out
west eventually took a toll on his health. He died 5 years after posing for this portrait, at
the age of 42. In the end, Cushing's career bore a remarkable similarity to Eakins's: both
were recognized for their talents but heavily criticized during their lifetimes for their
unorthodox ways.</p>
<h3>Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1900</h1>
<h2>The Thinker: Portrait of Louis N. Kenton</h2>
<p>A man in pince-nez glasses bows his head in contemplation. His hands are stuffed into
the pockets of his loose fitting black suit. A gold watch chain dangles through a
buttonhole in his coat. The starched, bright white collar draws our attention to his face,
with its grave expression. With its minimal background, this spare painting offers no
clues as to the man's identity. We are confronted instead by a universal image--the
dignity and psychological intensity of a man, alone in his thoughts.</p>
<p>The painting's subject is in fact Susan Eakins's brother-in-law, Louis N. Kenton, a
working class man whose father was a flour and grain salesman. Kenton is represented
with a powerful, understated presence, making this one of Eakins's most expressive
portraits. Eakins must have felt it one of his best works because it was among the works
he displayed most frequently. Many critics voiced their admiration as well and after
1900, Eakins began to enjoy a better reputation.</p>
<h3>The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. John Stewart Kennedy Fund, 1917</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
<h1>1902</h1>
<h2>
Self-Portrait</h2>
<p>In 1902, Eakins painted this self-portrait after being unanimously elected to the nation's
most prestigious art organization--the National Academy of Design. As the final
prerequisite of membership, every artist was required to submit a self-portrait.</p>
<p>Look at how Eakins chose to depict himself. According to a preliminary sketch, he
initially showed himself in a turtleneck sweater but ultimately opted for this more
professional-looking black coat and tie. But he doesn't hide his well-known disregard for
outward appearances. His mustache is uneven and his hair disheveled.</p>
<h3>National Academy of Design, New York</h3>
<br><br><br><br>
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