Self-portrait (Thomas Eakins)

Self-portrait
Self-portrait
Artist	Thomas Eakins
Year	1902
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	76 cm× 63 cm(30 in× 25 in)
Location	National Academy of Design, New York

Last updated November 25, 2023

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."^[1]

Background

Largely due to controversies surrounding his work, Eakins was not invited to become a member of the National Academy of Design until 1902, well after many of his contemporaries. It was only in the late 1890s that his reputation benefited from a positive reassessment by his colleagues, as well as a rediscovery by a younger generation of artists and writers.^[2] Unanimously approved as an Associate-elect of the National Academy on 12 March 1902, Eakins quickly painted this self-portrait and submitted it to the Academy on 5 May, and was accepted as a full Academician at the annual meeting on 14 May; he remains the only artist in the Academy's history to be made an Associate and full Academician in the same year.^[2]

Previously Eakins had included himself in several early sporting pictures, as well as The Swimming Hole , and in his large group portraits The Agnew Clinic and The Gross Clinic , and later he would paint himself in side view for William Rush and His Model . However, the two paintings of 1902 were his only independent self-portraits.^[2]

It is possible that the smaller oil was intended as an anatomical study or an experiment in emotional tone that Eakins decided not to submit to the Academy.^[3] The small size, 20 by 16 inches (510 mm × 410 mm), was used by Eakins for only two other portraits.^[2] Of frontal format, it is more directly confrontational than the Academy's painting, and appears to have been left unfinished.^[2] The artist may have been wearing a gray sweater seen previously in an 1895 photograph.^[2] Eakins' student Charles Bregler recalled that the painting was made in one sitting.^[2]

Painting

At 30 by 25 inches (760 mm × 640 mm), the Academy canvas is larger than Eakins' customary format of 24 by 20 inches (610 mm × 510 mm) for a bust portrait.^[4] He is seen in formal attire, wearing a dark suit with buttoned waistcoat, white shirt and a dark tie. His hair is unkempt and his mustache unevenly trimmed; the contrast between clothing and grooming alludes to a rebellious nature restrained by cultural mores.^[4] Compared to the smaller portrait, there is a greater sense of space and less intense physical immediacy— for John Updike, the National Academy picture "tames down a more truculent and even satanic earlier version"—^[5] though in both paintings Eakins makes direct eye contact with the viewer, a motive he very rarely used except for subjects with whom he was most familiar.^[4] Rarer still is such emphasis on the eye's liquid reflection, which accents the emotional impact of the image.^[4] The pose of the upper body is the same as that which Eakins used in Portrait of Leslie W. Miller , painted in 1901.^[6]

The painting is a fine example of Eakins' mature technique— "an unmatched demonstration of his absolute control of the medium"— and a powerful psychological study.^[4] Flesh and bone structure are painted with small strokes of fluid paint that offer a successful illusion of light-struck form, and at the same time the artist's self-depiction suggests emotional vulnerability.^[4] While presenting an expression that has been interpreted as one of "accusation and bitterness",^[7] art historian Darrel Sewell has noted that the painting's power resides in its emotional ambiguity, and that it bears closer relationship to the sympathetic intimacy of Eakins' portraits of women than to his more psychologically distant images of men.^[4]

Notes

↑ Goodrich, Vol. II, 1982. p. 201.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wilmerding, et al. 1993. p.155
↑ Wilmerding, et al. pp. 155-156.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wilmerding, et al. 1993. p.156
↑ Updike, p. 80.
↑ Sewell et al. 2001, p. 315.
↑ Sewell 1982, p. 105.

Related Research Articles

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 Swimming Hole is an 1884–85 painting by the American artist Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), Goodrich catalog #190, in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. Executed in oil on canvas, it depicts six men swimming naked in a lake, and is considered a masterpiece of American painting. According to art historian Doreen Bolger it is "perhaps Eakins' most accomplished rendition of the nude figure", and has been called "the most finely designed of all his outdoor pictures". Since the Renaissance, the human body has been considered both the basis of artists' training and the most challenging subject to depict in art, and the nude was the centerpiece of Eakins' teaching program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. For Eakins, this picture was an opportunity to display his mastery of the human form.

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.

Miss Amelia Van Buren or Portrait of Amelia C. Van Buren is a c. 1891 painting by the American artist Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), now in The Phillips Collection. It depicts Amelia Van Buren, an artist who studied with Eakins, and was called "one of his most gifted pupils." The painting is considered one of Eakins's finest works.

<i>Salutat</i> Painting by Thomas Eakins

Salutat is an 1898 painting by Thomas Eakins (1844–1916). Based on a real-life boxing match that occurred in 1898, the work depicts a boxer waving to the crowd after the match. According to Eakins' biographer Lloyd Goodrich, Salutat is "one of Eakins' finest achievements in figure-painting." The painting's title is Latin for "He greets" or "He salutes."

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.

William Rush and His Model is the collective name given to several paintings by Thomas Eakins, one set from 1876–77 and the other from 1908. These works depict the American wood sculptor William Rush in 1808, carving his statue Water Nymph and Bittern for a fountain at Philadelphia's first waterworks. The water nymph is an allegorical figure representing the Schuylkill River, which provided the city's drinking water, and on her shoulder is a bittern, a native waterbird related to the heron. Hence, these Eakins works are also known as William Rush Carving His Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River.

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.

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.

Amelia C. Van Buren was an American photographer. A noted portrait photographer, she was a student of Thomas Eakins, and the subject of his c. 1891 painting Miss Amelia Van Buren, regarded as one of his finest works.

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."

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.

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.

Conservation-restoration of Thomas Eakins <i>The Gross Clinic</i> Ongoing treatment of an 1875 painting

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.

Elizabeth Macdowell Kenton (1858–1953) was an American artist known for her figure paintings and portraits. She was also a photographer.

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.

References

Goodrich, Lloyd: Thomas Eakins, Vol. II. Harvard University Press, 1982. ISBN 0-674-88490-6
Sewell, Darrel. Thomas Eakins: Artist of Philadelphia. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1982. ISBN 0-87633-047-2
Sewell, Darrel; et al. Thomas Eakins. Yale University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-87633-143-6
Updike, John: Still Looking: Essays on American Art. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-4418-9
Wilmerding, John, et al. Thomas Eakins. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993. ISBN 1-56098-313-2

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[Goodrich201-1] Goodrich, Vol. II, 1982. p. 201.

[Wilmerding155-2] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wilmerding, et al. 1993. p.155

[3] Wilmerding, et al. pp. 155-156.

[Wilmerding156-4] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wilmerding, et al. 1993. p.156

[5] Updike, p. 80.

[Sewell315-6] Sewell et al. 2001, p. 315.

[7] Sewell 1982, p. 105.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]