Thomas Eakins - William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River [1876-77]

Thomas Eakins - William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River [1876-77], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

When Eakins exhibited this painting, first at the Boston Art Club in January 1878 and later that year at the Society of American Artists in New York, it created some controversy. A New York reviewer wrote: "What ruins the picture is much less the want of beauty in the model (as has been suggested in the public prints) than the presence in the foreground of the clothes of that young woman, cast carelessly over a chair. This gives the shock which makes one think about the nudity - and at once the picture becomes improper."

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, mounted on masonite, 51.1 x 66.4 cm]

Thomas Eakins - Arcadia [c.1883]

Thomas Eakins - Arcadia [c.1883], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 98.1 x 114.3 cm]

Thomas Eakins - The Chess Players [1876]

Thomas Eakins - The Chess Players [1876], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 29.8 x 42.6 cm]

Thomas Eakins - The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a SingleScull) [1871]

Thomas Eakins - The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull) [1871], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Returning to Philadelphia from Europe in 1870, Eakins began a series of representations of the sport of sculling, a subject with which he is uniquely identified. This, the first major work in the series, probably commemorates the victory of Max Schmitt (1843–1900), an attorney and skilled amateur rower, in an important race held on the Schuylkill River in October 1870. Also an avid rower, Eakins depicted himself pulling the oars of a scull in the middle distance. Eakins constructed the painting according to the academic principles espoused by his primary Parisian teacher, Jean-Léon Gérôme.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 81.9 x 117.5 cm]

Thomas Eakins - A May Morning in the Park (The Fairman RogersFour-in-Hand) [1879-80]

Thomas Eakins - A May Morning in the Park (The Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand) [1879-80], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting was commissioned in 1879 by Fairman Rogers, a civil engineer and coaching enthusiast, who was also Eakins's friend and his most important supporter on the board of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The painting shows Rogers' coach, a type known as a four-in-hand, in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. Fairman Rogers drives the coach with family members and friends seated beside him.

[Philadelphia Museum of Art - Oil on canvas, 60.3 x 91.4 cm]

Thomas Eakins - The Biglin Brothers Racing [1872]

Thomas Eakins - The Biglin Brothers Racing [1872], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In the decade following the Civil War, rowing became one of America’s most popular spectator sports. When its champions, the Biglin brothers of New York, visited Philadelphia in the early 1870s, Thomas Eakins made numerous paintings and drawings of them and other racers. Here, the bank of the Schuylkill River divides the composition in two. The boatmen and the entering prow of a competing craft fill the lower half with their immediate, large-scale presence. The upper and distant half contains a four-man rowing crew, crowds on the shore, and spectators following in flag-decked steamboats.

Himself an amateur oarsman and a friend of the Biglins, Eakins portrays John with his blade still feathered, almost at the end of his return motion. Barney, a split-second ahead in his stroke, watches for his younger brother’s oar to bite the water. Both ends of the Biglins’ pair-oared boat project beyond the picture’s edges, generating a sense of urgency, as does the other prow jutting suddenly into view.

The precision of Eakins’ style reflects his upbringing as the son of a teacher of penmanship. He studied under academic artists in Paris and traveled in Europe from 1866 to 1870. To further his understanding of anatomy, Eakins participated in dissections at Philadelphia's Jefferson Medical College in 1872-1874.

[Oil on canvas, 61.2 x 91.6 cm]

Thomas Eakins - Baby at Play [1876]

Thomas Eakins - Baby at Play [1876], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In 1876, Eakins joined the faculty of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Painted the same year, Baby at Play depicts Ella Crowell, the artist’s niece, in the side yard of his own Philadelphia home. Ella is totally absorbed with alphabet blocks, having cast aside her ball, doll, and toy horse and cart.

In accord with late nineteenth-century attitudes about education, she has progressed from infantile pursuits to more advanced stages of development. By stacking up the blocks, the child practices language and motor skills. Eakins communicates his niece’s serious concentration by arranging her into a solid, pyramidal mass that is nearly life-size and aligned geometrically with the toys, blocks, and paved walk. The brown bricks show Eakins’ expertise in mechanical drafting and, with the dark shrubbery, set off Ella’s sunlit figure.

[Oil on canvas, 81.9 x 122.8 cm]

Thomas Eakins - Wrestlers [1899]

Thomas Eakins - Wrestlers [1899], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

A young wrestler has just pinned his opponent to the ground. Their arms and legs are so thoroughly locked together, its hard to figure out whose limbs are whose. Painter Thomas Eakins (American, 1844 – 1916) captures the detail of every muscle and vein, the men’s pale skin, and their sunburned necks. Behind the wrestlers, on the left, someone works out on a rowing machine. On the right, a fully clothed referee stands next to another, almost nude, athlete. The white trunks the athletes wear were typical gym attire in the 1890s.

A sportswriter friend helped Eakins find these two models. One was a champion wrestler, the other, a boxer. Eakins was a teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, in Philadelphia. He taught his students human anatomy with a medical thoroughness, going so far as to bring in cadavers for them to dissect. But when he removed a male model’s loincloth in front of female students, he was asked to resign.

[Oil on canvas, 122.87 x 152.4 cm]

Thomas Eakins - William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River [1908]

This is one of several paintings in which Thomas Eakins (American, 1844 – 1916) provided an imaginary glimpse of the Philadelphia sculptor William Rush carving The Water Nymph and Bittern, which was installed in PhIladelphia's Centre Square In 1809. Although Eakins's initial motives came from a desire to restore Rush's name to the history of American art, his primary focus on the back of a strongly highlighted nude model also calls into play issues about traditional methods of art instruction. Rush was a founder of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where Eakins taught for many years until 1886, when he was dismissed in a controversy about his allowing female students to attend life classes.

[Oil on canvas, 91.30 x 121.50 cm]

Thomas Eakins - Between Rounds [1898–99]

During the 1890s Eakins (American, 1844–1916) focused his energies on probing portraits, except for a few canvases devoted to boxing and wrestling in which he returned to male athletics, his groundbreaking theme of the early 1870s. Eakins's boxing and wrestling paintings are, however, even bolder in their subject matter than his early rowing pictures. Although the popular press about 1900 featured images of prize fighting and accounts of boxers such as John L. Sullivan, most artists turned away from depicting ring sports, which were associated with sanctioned violence, gambling, and alcohol. For his ringside view of a match in Philadelphia's Arena, Eakins invited Billy Smith, a local featherweight, to pose for the boxer, asked other figures from the boxing world to re-enact their real-life roles in his Chestnut Street studio, and enlisted friends and relatives to pose for the spectators. As usual, he minimises drama, showing Smith catching his breath rather than struggling against Timothy Callahan, his unseen, and ultimately successful, opponent.

[Oil on canvas, 127.3 x 101.3 cm]