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
 

1 comment:

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