Customer Reviews

Thomas Eakins

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Anecdotes abound in reference to Thomas Eakins American painter, watercolorist, draftsman, photographer, and sculptor. He is remembered for relaxing after painting by working calculus problems, and shocking friends with stories of his nude models.

A skilled portraitist he painted Walt Whitman. The poet said of his likeness, "I never knew of but one artist, and that's Tom Eakins, who could resist the temptation to see what they think ought to be rather than what is."

Whitman's opinion aside, Eakins (1844 - 1916) is recognized as one of the premier American artists to appear following the Civil War. He traveled to Paris for training, and later chose to apply Beaux-Arts techniques to distinctly American subjects. His fondness for athletics is found in his noted scenes of sailing, fishing, and boxing.

He is equally remembered for his then controversial paintings of surgeons at work, and remains a key figure in American art. This beautiful volume is apt affirmation of Eakins the artist.

- Gail Cooke

This large, well-produced book features far more reproductions of photographs by Eakins and his circle than reproductions of his paintings. All reproductions of images are excellent, but, again, far too few paintings are included. There is some interesting scholarship concerning Eakins' use of photography. The book is arranged chronologically, with images scattered throughout; this scattering reduces the accessibility of the relatively few reproductions of the paintings. This book provides some fresh, interesting scholarship on a significant American artist, but it may be a disappointment for those who want primarily to look at Eakins' paintings.

I'm a rower in high school on the west coast, and you don't really hear much about rowing over here, since it's mostly an east coast sport. So when my history teacher started going over Thomas Eakins and showed a clip about him from a documentary with some examples of his rowing paintings, my attention was immediately captures. I decided to do my term paper on him, but I expected it to be a long and tedious process, judging from the book I got from the library (which looked plain, boring, and old), so I put it off 'till the last minute. I just picked up the book an hour ago for the first time and just got online to see if they had any copies of it ..., since it proved to be well-written and interesting (so you don't space out so much in the middle of paragraphs like I tend to), and because it led me to think about things that are important parts of learning and art and life, but nobody ever talks about. This book proved to be insightful and fascinating, and after only one chapter, I'm hooked on the subject! And to think I was dreading reading it!

Though this book, a catalogue for an exhibition of the art of Thomas Eakins at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, after ten years remains one of the most thorough and well written books on Eakins, considered by many to be America's finest artist. Curator and writer Darrel Sewell has gathered ten other fine essayists to include in the this retrospective exhibition and each of the essays is not only well written but also is an example of how to present biographical information in a very refreshing format.

This book not only presents fine color plates of Eakins' paintings, the very famous ones as well as the lesser known paintings and drawings, but it also is filled with photographs that greatly influenced Thomas Eakins as a painter of American life and of the anatomical studies of the figure in motion that helped inform his pulsating paintings. The 'scandalous' aspects of his life are discussed as well as the exploration of Eakins' rather treacherous life as a teacher. Unfortunately this catalogue from the hometown of the artist skirts the issues of Eakins' sexuality as one might expect that it would. But that is a minor flaw that subsequent book about this artist have corrected. In all this is a lushly produced catalogue with over 250 color reproductions of the work of this great master of realistic art. This book belongs in the libraries of all art lovers. Grady Harp, September 10

This book is gorgeous! The essays provide a variety of perspectives on Eakins work. A must have for every fan of Eakins paintings.