Painting and Masculinity:Peinture et masculinite Paperback

Who is Thomas Eakins ?

Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (/ˈeɪkɪnz/; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer,^[1] sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists.^[2][3]

For the length of his professional career, from the early 1870s until his health began to fail some 40 years later, Eakins worked exactingly from life, choosing as his subject the people of his hometown of Philadelphia. He painted several hundred portraits, usually of friends, family members, or prominent people in the arts, sciences, medicine, and clergy. Taken en masse, the portraits offer an overview of the intellectual life of contemporary Philadelphia of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Study in Human Motion an Eakins photograph

Eakins has been credited with having “introduced the camera to the American art studio”.^[34] During his study abroad, he was exposed to the use of photography by the French realists, though the use of photography was still frowned upon as a shortcut by traditionalists.^{[citation needed]}

In the late 1870s, Eakins was introduced to the photographic motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge, particularly the equine studies, and became interested in using the camera to study sequential movement.^[