Thomas Eakins

Regarded by many as the greatest American painter of the nineteenth century, Thomas Eakins began his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. After further training in Paris, he returned home gripped by a fascination for painting the nude. Indeed, he was forced to resign from his teaching post after revealing a fully nude male model before a mixed life class. Despite the controversy, family wealth allowed him to continue his work uninterrupted. His portraits were highly valued for their psychological depth, in contrast to more superficial society portraits of the time. Eakins also pioneered the use of photography as an aid to his unsparing realism. His best-known painting, The Gross Clinic (1875), depicts surgery with characteristic and brutal honesty. He was also particularly skilled at portraying outdoor activities, most famously in Max Schmitt in a Single Scull (1871). His work had a huge influence on both the Ashcan School and the later American figurative tradition.