Thomas Eakins
After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Thomas Eakins returned to his native Philadelphia. Although he is considered one of the most important American artists of his time, he primarily built his reputation as a teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Eakins insisted that his students paint directly from live models and believed in teaching male and female artists together. His work is recognized today for its commitment to unbiased realism and precise details.
When have you expressed dissent?
Eakins made this study of a nude female model while studying with the academic artist Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The sitter also appears in three paintings by the French Impressionist Frédéric Bazille. Eakins’s belief that students should study from live models led to his 1886 dismissal as a professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, for removing a male model’s loincloth in a class that included female students.
Museum purchase, Mildred Anna Williams Collection