Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) was an American realist, who used oil painting, watercolor painting, photography. and sculpture to explore his favorite subject, the human figure. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1862 to 1866. Eakins influenced American art by bringing some attention back to figurative painting rather than landscape works. He later became a teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy and although he was an influential teacher he was forced to resign after removing a male model’s loincloth in a class with female students. Victorian Philadelphia was not quite ready for Eakins’ bold acceptance of nudity and its importance to understanding the human figure within the arts. This controversial incident harmed his reputation, however, students still continued to learn from him and many of them went on to become great artists in their own right.
Paintings by Thomas Eakins in Chronological Order