Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) is one of the most fascinating and important personalities in the history of American art. His memorable and much-loved scenes of rowing, sailing, and boxing, as well as his deeply moving portraits, are renowned for their vibrant realism and dramatic intensity. This beautiful and insightful book, published in conjunction with a major exhibition on the life and career of Eakins—the first in twenty years—presents a fresh perspective on the artist and his remarkable accomplishments.
Lavishly illustrated with more than 250 of Eakins’s most significant paintings, watercolors, drawings, and sculpture, the book features essays by prominent scholars who place his art in the history and culture of nineteenth-century Philadelphia, where he lived. The contributors also discuss how Eakins applied his French academic training to subjects that were distinctly American and part of his own immediate and complex experience. Eakins’s own photographs, which he used as part of his unique creative process, are also examined for the first time in full context of his life and work.