Susan Macdowell Eakins Susan Macdowell Eakins Susan Hannah Macdowell Eakins (September 21, 1851 – December 27, 1938) was an American painter and photographer. Her works were first shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where she was a student. She won the Mary Smith Prize there in 1879 and Charles Toppan prize in 1882. One of her teachers was artist Thomas Eakins, who later became her husband. She made portrait and still life paintings. She was also known of her photography. After her husband died in 1916, Eakins became a prolific painter. Her works were exhibited in group exhibitions in her lifetime,
Self-portrait (Thomas Eakins) intended as an anatomical study or an experiment in emotional tone that Eakins decided not to submit to the Academy. The small size, , was used by Eakins for only two other portraits. Of frontal format, it is more directly confrontational than the Academy's painting, and appears to have been left unfinished. The artist may have been wearing a gray sweater seen previously in an 1895 photograph. Eakins' student Charles Bregler recalled that the painting was made in one sitting. At , the Academy canvas is larger than Eakins' customary format of for a bust portrait. He is seen in