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Thomas Cowperwaite Eakins
Biogragraphy from www.askart.com
Thomas Eakins is a renowned American painter who was born in Philadelphia in 1844. He lived most of his life there with the exception of a period of fine art schooling in Europe between 1866 and 1870. Studying under Jean-Leon Gerome at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he absorbed his teacher's precise and uncompromising sense for actuality. Eakins traveled to Spain for six months where he was influenced by the work of the Spanish realists Velazquez and Ribera. He admired their naturalistic style and acquired Velazquez's technique of using multi-layered glazes. Later he applied these techniques to portraiture and genre paintings of Philadelphia.
Eakins loved factual statement and combined it with a strong scientific interest. His most famous paintings are recognized for their brutal Realism as The Gross Clinic (1875). Currently hanging in the Thomas Jefferson University Art Musueum in Philadelphia, The Gross Clinic, was a monumental work that was meant to reveal to the public the progress of medical science and one of its leading figures, Philadelphia Physican Samuel Gross. This painting demonstrates the most significant characteristics of Eakins style: anatomy, perspective, principles of motion, relfection, and accuracy.
Photography was another of Eakins' interests and in 1844, he worked with Edward Muybridge in a special study of animal and human locomotion. He helped Muybridge improve photographer's methods by inventing a single camera to replace the use of several cameras.
Through portraiture, Eakins explored his interest in the subtle and dramatic play of light. He preferred using the more somber Rembrandtesque tones to create the mood and personality of his subjects. As a teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts, he emphasized drawing from life at a time when this realistic approach to subject matter was not in vogue. He did not flatter his subjects: instead, his portraits often became compelling psychological studies.
Eakins is also known for allowing female art students to draw from live nude models which eventually led to his dismissal from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Thomas Eakins died in Philadelphia in 1916.