Who was Thomas Eakins? Everything You Need to Know

Quick Facts

Also Known As: Икинс, Томас

Died At Age: 71

Family:

Spouse/Ex-: Susan Macdowell Eakins

Artists Realist Painters

Died on: June 25, 1916

U.S. State: Pennsylvania

More Facts

education: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Thomas Jefferson University, Central High School

awards: National Academy Museum and School

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Childhood & Early Life

Thomas Eakins was born on July 25, 1844, in Philadelphia, as the first child of Caroline Cowperthwait Eakins and Benjamin Eakins. He was of mixed ancestry. His father worked as a writing master and calligraphy teacher, and was very successful as a professional.

Thomas grew up to be an athletic boy who enjoyed rowing, ice skating, swimming, wrestling, sailing, and gymnastics. He also displayed an early interest in arts.

He attended Central High School where he excelled in mechanical drawing. Eventually he joined Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1861 where he studied drawing and anatomy. Furthering his fascination with human anatomy, he attended courses in anatomy and dissection at Jefferson Medical College from 1864 to 1865.

He travelled to Europe in 1866 and studied with the French realist painter Jean-Léon Gérôme before attending the atelier of Léon Bonnat. He also studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. It was during his stay in Europe that he became aware of his fascination with the nude female form which he considered to be one of the most artistic creations in nature.

After completing his studies in Paris, he went to Spain in late 1869 and was greatly impressed by 17th-century paintings of Diego Velázquez and José de Ribera. It was in Spain that he undertook his first independent efforts at oil painting.

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Career

Thomas Eakins embarked on a career as a professional painter upon his return from Europe. Reflecting his love for sports, he created a large number of paintings of rowing scenes, of which ‘The Champion Single Sculling’, known also as ‘Max Schmitt in a Single Scull’ (1871) became the most famous.

During the early 1870s, he also began painting portraits of people, his early subject beings his sisters and other members of his family. He also made several paintings of his fiancée, Katherine Crowell and her family. His portraits of young women playing the piano, children engrossed with toys, and a girl playing with a kitten on her lap exuded the warmth of intimate home life.

Some of the major paintings he made during the 1870s are 'Home Scene' (1871), 'Elizabeth at the Piano' (1875), 'The Chess Players' (1876) , and 'Elizabeth Crowell and her Dog' (1874).

As a young man, Thomas Eakins continued pursuing his passion for sports like hunting, sailing, fishing, swimming, and rowing which not only provided him with adventure, but also with subject matter for his art.

Along with being a painter, he was also an educator of fine arts. He began his teaching career as a volunteer at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1876 and became a salaried professor in 1878. He rose through the ranks quickly to become director in 1882.

Eakins was also a skilled photographer credited to have "introduced the camera to the American art studio". He obtained his own camera in 1880, and many of his paintings including ‘Mending the Net’ (1881) and ‘Arcadia’ (1883) were derived at least in part from his photographs.

As an educator he often adopted controversial methods of teaching. Since he had a deep interest in all the aspects of the human figure, he stressed on the anatomical study of the human and animal body. While he was praised for being liberal, his teaching methods, especially when it came to nudes, caused considerable controversy.

He believed that women should be accorded the same professional privileges as men would be, and thus his women students had access to male models who were nude but for loincloths. In 1886, he removed the loincloth of a male model in a class where female students were present and was forced to resign because of the ensuing uproar over his inappropriate behavior.

He was a very popular teacher and several of his students were so agitated at his resignation that they broke with the Academy and formed the Art Students' League of Philadelphia in 1886 where Thomas Eakins subsequently instructed until 1893. He also taught at other schools including the Art Students League of New York, the National Academy of Design, Cooper Union, and the Art Students' Guild in Washington DC. He withdrew from teaching by 1898.

Major Work

Thomas Eakins’ 1875 painting, ‘The Gross Clinic’, is considered to be Thomas Eakins’ masterpiece. It depicts Dr. Samuel D. Gross lecturing a group of medical students. The painting, much criticized at the time of its making, is today celebrated as a great 19th century medical history painting, featuring one of the most superb portraits in American art.

Awards & Achievements

In 1902, he was made a National Academician, one of the few honors he received during his lifetime.

Personal Life & Legacy

He was initially engaged to a girl called Katherine Crowell who unfortunately died before the marriage could take place.

Thomas Eakins married one of his students, Susan Hannah Macdowell, in 1884. His wife was a talented painter in her own right though she did not paint much after marriage and instead chose to support her husband in his career. They did not have any children.

He died on June 25, 1916, aged 71, in Philadelphia.

Thomas Eakins Biography