| Portrait of Leslie W. Miller | |
|---|---|
 G-348. | |
| Artist | Thomas Eakins |
| Year | 1901 |
| Type | Oil on burlap canvas |
| Dimensions | 223.8 cm× 111.8 cm(88+1⁄8 in× 44 in) |
| Location | Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia |
Portrait of Leslie W. Miller is a 1901 painting by Thomas Eakins, Goodrich catalogue #348. It is in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Professor Leslie William Miller (August 5, 1848 – March 7, 1931) was an artist, educator, and principal of the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art for forty years, 1880–1920. He was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, and studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He graduated from the Massachusetts Normal Art School (now Massachusetts College of Art) in 1874, and worked as a portrait painter. He returned to MNAS to teach, and completed a second degree in 1880.
The Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (PMSIA) had been chartered in 1876, and was housed in Memorial Hall, the art gallery from the 1876 Centennial Exposition. The school began classes in Fall 1877, in a building at 312 North Broad Street, [1] and soon expanded into the old Franklin Institute (now the Philadelphia History Museum), at 15 South 7th Street. [2] Miller came to Philadelphia in Summer 1880 as PMSIA's first principal, [2] at the same time that Eakins was teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Miller registered for PAFA's life classes in February 1881. [3] Colleagues in Philadelphia's artistic circles, Eakins and Miller became close friends. Miller was a member of the American Philosophical Society, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and was a founder of the Art Club of Philadelphia. As secretary of the Fairmount Park Art Association (1900–20), he was involved in public art decisions for the City, including the layout of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the design of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He was an honorary member of Philadelphia's T-Square Club, and of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
In 1892, the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (now Pennsylvania School for the Deaf) moved to a suburban campus in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. The following year, its vacant buildings at Broad & Pine Streets were bought by the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art's trustees, and renovated for the art school's needs.
Former student Charles Sheeler recalled Eakins visiting PMSIA to work on the portrait (probably in late 1900):
"One day a stocky little man, gray-haired and gray-bearded, passed through our workroom. His trousers were tucked into short leather boots and fitted so snugly as to make the braces over his dark sweater superfluous. Neither his appearance nor his manner offered a clew[ sic ]as to the reason for his visit. A few days later he returned and passed to the life-class room, just beyond where we were working. Knotholes in the board partition were used at intervals and permitted us to satisfy our curiosity. The stocky little man was beginning a portrait of the principal of the school, Leslie Miller, and before long the plan of the picture was indicated. The subject was to be portrayed standing easily with one hand in his trousers pocket and the other holding a manuscript from which he raised his eyes as if to direct them toward an audience. As the artist's work continued we witnessed the progress of a perspective drawing which was made on paper and then transferred to the canvas, to account for charts of ornament receding into the background—those charts which we knew only too well. This careful procedure led us to the conclusion that the man, whoever he was, couldn't be a great artist, for we had learned somewhere that great artists painted only by inspiration, a process akin to magic."
"Several months were thus consumed; then came the day, as we discovered through the convenient knotholes, when another perspective drawing was made and transferred to the canvas, on the floor and to one side. The letters spelled Eakins. The name was not familiar to us." [4]
Of the perspective drawings described by Sheeler, only one is known to survive, that of Eakins's signature. He signed the painting (in perspective) at Miller's feet. In the nearly life-sized, full-length portrait, Miller is depicted as if lecturing to a class. The painting's eye level is unusually high and the color range limited, leading the viewer to Miller's face. Its informality makes this a democratic formal portrait. Eakins exhibited Miller's portrait seven times. It was awarded the Thomas R. Proctor Prize at the National Academy of Design in 1905, and the second class medal at the Carnegie Institute in 1907. [5]
Miller later wrote of the painting:
"The primitive, even shabby frame [6] represents Eakins' taste rather than mine as do the old nondescript clothes in which the subject is garbed which he begged me to rescue from the slop-chest and put on for the occasion, and personally I should be very glad to have the frame at least spruced up a bit.
"Ever since I found out how much of a picture he was going to make of it, I have been haunted by a mild regret that I didn't insist on his painting me,—if he painted me at all,— in habilments[ sic ]that would at least have been more like those I would have worn when appearing in any such character as that in which he has done me the honor to portray me, but, as is evident throughout all his work, he had a passion for the ultra informal which sometimes carried him so far as to lead him to prefer the unfit to the fit if it were only old, and worn and familiar enough.
"But all that is part of the Eakins hallmark and of course it cannot be spared. He was one of the great ones and I value the picture very highly." [7]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted a memorial exhibition of Eakins's work in November 1917. In a letter to his students at the Art Students League of New York, artist and teacher Robert Henri wrote:
"Look, if you will, ... at the portrait of Miller for a man's feeling for a man. This is what I call a beautiful portrait; not a pretty or a swagger portrait, but an honest, respectful, appreciative man-to-man portrait.
"Eakins's pictures and his sculptures are the recordings of a man who lived and studied and loved with a strong heart." [8]
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists.
The Chess Players is an 1876 genre painting by Thomas Eakins, Goodrich catalogue #96. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.
Raphael Zalman Soyer was a Russian-born American painter, draftsman, and printmaker. Soyer was referred to as an American scene painter. He is identified as a Social Realist because of his interest in men and women viewed in contemporary settings which included the streets, subways, salons and artists' studios of New York City. He also wrote several books on his life and art.
The Gross Clinic or The Clinic of Dr. Gross is an 1875 painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. It is oil on canvas and measures 8 feet (240 cm) by 6.5 feet (200 cm).
Thomas Pollock Anshutz was an American painter and teacher. Known for his portraiture and genre scenes, Anshutz was a co-founder of The Darby School. One of Thomas Eakins's most prominent students, he succeeded Eakins as director of drawing and painting classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Max Schmitt in a Single Scull is an 1871 painting by Thomas Eakins, Goodrich catalogue #44. It is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Set on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it celebrates Eakins's friend Max Schmitt's victory in the October 5, 1870, single sculls competition.
The Concert Singer is a painting by Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), depicting the singer Weda Cook (1867–1937). The work, commenced in 1890 and completed in 1892, was Eakins's first full-length portrait of a woman. It is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The Thinker: Portrait of Louis N. Kenton is an oil painting of 1900 by the American artist Thomas Eakins. It is a depiction of the artist's brother-in-law, Louis N. Kenton (1865-1947), and it has been called "one of Eakins's most memorable portraits". The painting is one of a series of life size standing male portraits painted late in Eakins's career.
Susan Hannah Eakins was an American painter and photographer. Her works were first shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she was a student. She won the Mary Smith Prize there in 1879 and the Charles Toppan prize in 1882.
Wrestlers is a name shared by three closely related 1899 paintings by American artist Thomas Eakins,. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) owns the finished painting (G-317), and the oil sketch (G-318). The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) owns a slightly smaller unfinished version (G-319). All three works depict a pair of nearly naked men engaged in a wrestling match. The setting for the finished painting is the Quaker City Barge Club (defunct), which once stood on Philadelphia's Boathouse Row.
The Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand is an 1879-80 painting by Thomas Eakins. It shows Fairman Rogers driving a coaching party in his four-in-hand carriage through Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. It is thought to be the first painting to examine precisely, through systematic photographic analysis, how horses move.
Portrait of Mary Adeline Williams is the title given to two separate oil on canvas paintings by Thomas Eakins, each depicting Mary Adeline Williams (1853–1941), known familiarly to the Eakins family as "Addie". The first painting, now in the Art Institute of Chicago, was completed in 1899, and portrays the subject with a serious demeanor. The second portrait, in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, was painted in 1900, and is more emotionally expressive. The contrast between the paintings has been called "Perhaps the most famous example of Eakins's transforming a sitter dramatically while maintaining the effect of severe realism."
Self-portrait is an oil on canvas painting by Thomas Eakins, presented as a diploma piece upon his election as an Associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1902. Although Eakins included himself as an observer or participant in group portraits and genre scenes, this and a smaller unsigned and undated oil, thought to have been made at about the same time, are the only unadorned self-portraits he ever painted. Lloyd Goodrich wrote that it "is not only one of his finest head and bust likenesses, but a revealing human document; in the direct look of his remarkable eyes one can see strength, penetrating intelligence, and a touch of ironic humor."
Portrait of Maud Cook is an 1895 painting by the American artist Thomas Eakins, Goodrich catalogue #279. It is in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery.
Art Students' League of Philadelphia was a short-lived, co-operative art school formed in reaction to Thomas Eakins's February 1886 forced-resignation from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Eakins taught without pay at ASL from 1886 until the school's dissolution in early 1893.
Frank Benton Ashley Linton was an American portrait-painter and teacher. He was a student of Thomas Eakins, studied the École des Beaux-Arts, and won a bronze medal at the 1927 Salon Nationale in Paris. Likely a closeted gay man, he lived with pianist Samuel Meyers for more than thirty years.
Joseph E. Temple Fund Gold Medal (defunct) was a prestigious art prize awarded by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts most years from 1883 to 1968. A Temple Medal recognized the best oil painting by an American artist shown in PAFA's annual exhibition. Recipients included James Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Robert Henri and Edward Hopper.
The conservation-restoration of Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic refers to the on-going conservation-restoration treatments of American painter Thomas Eakins' 1875 painting The Gross Clinic throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. These treatments are a testament to the changing methodologies undertaken in the field of paintings conservation.
Archbishop William Henry Elder is a 1903 oil portrait by the American artist Thomas Eakins depicting the Archbishop of Cincinnati William Henry Elder, one of a series of portraits of Catholic clergy Eakins undertook late in his career. In this psychologically probing portrait, Eakins depicts the stoic Elder, frail but still imposing at 84, confronting his own mortality.