Eakins, Thomas

Eakins, Thomas (1844–1916). American painter, mainly of portraits, active for most of his life in his native Philadelphia. He began teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts there in 1876 and was attacked for his radical ideas, particularly his insistence on working from nude models. In 1886 he was forced to resign after allowing a mixed class to draw from a completely nude male model, but his ideals were carried on by his successor Anshutz. Eakins also caused controversy more than once because of the unsparing realism of his work. Financial support from his father enabled him to continue on his chosen course despite public abuse, but much of his later career was spent working in bitter isolation. In 1894 he wrote: ‘My honours are misunderstanding, persecution, and neglect, enhanced because unsought.’ It was only near the end of his life that he achieved recognition as a great master, and in the first two decades of the 20th century his desire to ‘peer deeper into the heart of American life’ was reflected in the work of the Ashcan School and other realist painters. In 1917 a memorial exhibition of his work was held at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and Robert Henri—one of Eakins's greatest admirers—wrote an open letter to his students at the Art Students League, urging them to study the work of the great man: ‘His quality was honesty. “Integrity” is the word which seems best to fit him. Personally I consider him the greatest portrait painter America has produced.’ This verdict is now shared by most critics; indeed, many consider him the greatest of all American painters. Eakins also made a few sculptures. Little of his work can be seen outside the USA; the best collection is in the Philadelphia Museum.

His wife, Susan Hannah Macdowell Eakins (1851–1938), whom he married in 1884, was also a painter and photographer, as well as an accomplished pianist.