Saturday 14 July 2012

Thomas Eakins - part 5

This is part 5 of a 6-part post on the works of American artist Thomas Eakins. Parts 1 – 4 feature his paintings, parts 5 – 6 his photography. Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) was the most powerful figure painter and portrait painter of his time in America. For biographical notes on Eakins, and for earlier works, see parts 1 - 4.

Self Portrait c1884
In the 1880s, through a series of technical advances that greatly simplified its practice, photography had expanded from being the province solely of the specialist into an activity accessible to the millions. To define photography as a discipline distinct from its casual, commercial, and scientific applications became the overriding goal of many American artists in the last two decades of the century, who claimed for it a place commensurate with those artistic endeavors that celebrated the complex, irreducible subjectivity of their makers. The photographs of Thomas Eakins are a perfect example of this development.

In addition to being an accomplished painter, watercolourist and teacher, Thomas Eakins was a dedicated and talented photographer. Working with a wooden view camera, glass plate negatives, and the platinum print process, he distinguished himself from most other painters of his generation by mastering the technical aspects of the new medium and requiring his students to do the same. For Eakins, the camera was a teaching device comparable to anatomical drawing, a tool the modern artist should use to train the eye to see what was truly before it.

Although it is not known from whom or when Eakins learned photography, it is clear that by 1880 he had already incorporated the camera into his professional and personal life. The vast majority of photographs attributed to Eakins are figure studies (nude and clothed) and portraits of his pupils, extended family (including himself) and immediate friends. More than 225 negatives survive in the Bregler collection at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and approximately 800 images are currently attributed to Eakins and his circle—ample proof of the intensity with which Eakins worked with the camera.

Eakins did not generally use photographs as a preparatory aid to painting, although there are a small number of oils which have direct counterparts in existing photographs: the Amon Carter Museum's The Swimming Hole and the Metropolitan's Arcadia being the foremost examples:


1884-85 Swimming 
oil on canvas 69.4 x 92.2 cm
1883 photograph of Eakins' students at the site of "The Swimming Hole"

c1883 Arcadia 
oil on canvas 98.1 x 114.3 cm

c1883 Portrait of Eakins by Thomas Anshutz
To the contrary, Eakins saw a different role for photography- one related to his extraordinary interest in knowing the figure and improving his sensitivity to complex figure-ground relationships. Committed to teaching close observation through the practice of dissection and preparatory wax and plaster sculpture, Eakins introduced the camera to the American art studio. At first his photographs were likely quick studies of pose and gesture; later, perhaps during the process of editing and cropping the negatives, and then making enlarged platinum prints, he saw the photographs as discrete works of art on paper, at their best on equal status with his watercolours.

The artistic freedom of the classical world that Eakins strove to bring to life in his academic programs at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (and in his Arcadian paintings) also appears as an important element in many of his nude studies with the camera. These photographs, far more than the paintings, celebrate the male physique; even today, more than a century after their creation, their unabashed frontal nudity still has the power to shock contemporary eyes.

1880 Maggie Eakins and "Harry" with Woman with Parasol 
albumen silver print

1880 Maggie Eakins with "Harry" 
albumen silver print

1880 William J. Crowell with Ella 
albumen silver print 9.5 x 7.2 cm

1880-82 Maggie Eakins with "Harry" 
glass positive

1880-82 Maggie Eakins with "Harry" 
platinum print

1880-82 William H. Macdowell ( Eakins' father-in-law ) and Margaret Eakins in Saltville, Virginia 
platinum print 27.4 x 20 cm

1880s William H. MacDowell 
gelatin silver print

1880s ( Female Model, Hand to Head ) 
cyanotype

1880s ( Model in Grecian Dress ) 
albumen silver print

1880s ( Portrait of a Child )
 albumen silver print

1880s Amelia Van Buren with a Cat

1880s Eliza Cowperthwaite 
albumen silver print

1880s Elizabeth MacDowell Kenton 
albumen silver print

1880s Frank MacDowell 
glass positive

1880s George W. Holmes 
platinum print

1880s Mary Macdowell 
platinum print

1880s Miss Gilroy with Banjo 
platinum print

1880s Mrs. William H. Macdowell 
platinum print

1880s Susan MacDowell with Maggie Eakins, Ben, Will, and Artie Crowell 
glass positive

1880s ( Woman Playing Cello )
 platinum print

1880s William H. MacDowell 
albumen silver print

1880s William H. MacDowell 
platinum print

1880s William O'Donovan and a Lady 
platinum print

1880s-90s ( Mrs. Eakins or Her Sister Doll )
 albumen silver print

1881 Frances Eakins Crowell with the Horse called "Bess" 
albumen silver print

1883 Margaret Eakins 
glass positive 8.3 x 5.4 cm

1883 Two Pupils in Greek Dress 
platinum print 36.8 x 26.7 cm

1883 Two Boys Playing at the Creek, July 4, 1883 
albumen silver print 8.8 x 11.1 cm

c1883 Thomas Eakins and J. Laurie Wallace at the Shore 
platinum print 25.5 x 20.4 cm

Thursday 12 July 2012

Thomas Eakins - part 4

This is part 4 of a 6-part post on the works of American artist Thomas Eakins. Parts 1 – 4 feature his paintings, parts 5 – 6 his photography. Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) was the most powerful figure painter and portrait painter of his time in America. For biographical notes on Eakins, and for earlier works, see parts 1 - 3.

c1897 Portrait of Jennie Dean Kershaw 
oil on canvas

1898 Salutat 
oil on canvas 127 x 101.6 cm

1898 Taking the Count 
oil on canvas

1898-99 Between Rounds study for The Timer (see below)

1898-99 Between Rounds 
oil on canvas

1899 Portrait of Mary Adeline Williams 
oil on canvas 61 x 50.8 cm

Mary Adeline Williams was a longtime friend of the Eakins family, a best friend to Eakins' younger sister Margaret, and a distant relation through marriage; she would later say that Thomas Eakins "was like a big brother to me." As early as 1867 Eakins took a protective interest in her, writing to his sister Fanny: "She is a pretty little girl & I guess just as good as she is pretty, or she belies her blood. We owe a great deal to her father & mother for their unvarying disinterested kindness to us....Try to make her welcome whenever she comes to town."

1899 The Wrestlers 
oil on canvas 122.9 x 152.4 cm

1900 Antiquated Music aka Portrait of Sarah Sagehorn Frishmuth
oil on canvas

1900 Frank Jay St. John 
oil on canvas 61.3 x 50.8 cm

This portrait of Frank Jay St. John (above) indicates the influence of Whistler's portrait of Carlyle (below) on a realist painter of a different sensibility:

Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 2 - Portrait of Thomas Carlyle by James McNeill Whistler 1872-72

1900 Mrs. Mary Arthur 
oil on canvas 61 x 50.8 cm

1900 Study for the Thinker (see below) 
oil on paper on wood 35.6 x 25.4 cm

1900 The Thinker, Portrait of Louis N. Kenton 
oil on canvas 208.3 x 106.7 cm

1901 Portrait of Leslie W. Miller 
oil on canvas

1903 Portrait of William B. Kurtz 
oil on canvas

1903 The Oboe Player aka Portrait of Benjamin Sharp 
oil on canvas

c1903 Mother (Annie Williams Gandy, mother of Eakins) 
oil on canvas 61 x 50.8 cm

1904 Charles Percival Buck 
oil on canvas 61 x 51 cm
1904 Portrait of Frank B. A. Linton 
oil on canvas
Frank Benton Ashley Linton (1871 – 1943) born in Philadelphia, was an American portrait-painter and teacher. He was an instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Likely, a closeted gay man, he lived with pianist Samuel Meyers (below) (I could only find a black and white reproduction) for more than 30 years.

On Saturday afternoons, accompanied by his wife Susan, Eakins would visit former student Frank Linton, who with Samuel Myers, put on musical performances in their home. Helen Parker described Eakins as so moved by a performance there that he sat in a corner and unashamedly sobbed.

1904 Portrait of Samuel Myers 
oil on canvas 61.2 x 51.1 cm

c1904 Portrait of William H. Macdowell 
oil on canvas 61 x 50.8 cm

c1906 A Singer (Mrs. W. H. Bowden) 
oil on canvas 61.9 x 51.7 cm 

1907 Dr. Albert C. Getchell  
oil on canvas 61 x 51 cm

1908 William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River 
oil on canvas 91.3 x 121.5 cm

1908 William Rush's Model 
oil on canvas 92.1 x 122.3 cm

c1908 The Old-Fashioned Dress aka Portrait of Helen Montanverde Parker 
oil on canvas