Thomas Eakins that was often as tender as it was vigorous, and to have preserved for us the essence of an American life which, indeed, he did not idealize—because it seemed to him beautiful beyond the necessity of idealization. Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important artists in American art history. For the length of his professional career, from the early 1870s until his health began to fail some 40 years later, Eakins worked exactingly
Conservation-restoration of Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic surgery at a desk behind Gross. Gross' son Dr. Samuel W. Gross and orderly Hughey O'Donnell can be seen standing in the hall leading out of the amphitheater. A woman, possibly the patient's mother, can be seen recoiling at the bottom right. A self-portrait of Eakins himself can be seen on the right side of the painting, in the front of the theater, taking notes. Work on the painting likely began sometime in April 1875, as evidenced by a letter from Eakins to his friend Earl Shinn in which he declares, "What elates me more is that I have just