Thomas Eakins 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 from life, choosing as his subject the people of his hometown of Philadelphia. He painted several hundred portraits, usually of friends, family members, or prominent people in the arts, sciences, medicine, and clergy. Taken "en masse", the
The Chess Players (Eakins painting) younger player, seems to be winning the match, as he has taken the queen of his opponent (the top of which pokes out of the table's drawer), and his own black queen is well-positioned in the centre of the board. Eakins painted "The Chess Players" for his father, and signed the painting in Latin, "BENJAMINI. EAKINS. FILIUS. PINXIT. '76"—"the son of Benjamin Eakins painted this"—in small letters on the drawer of the table. Art historian Akela Reason proposes that the painting is a tribute to a number of the artist's father-figures: Holmes probably was Eakins's first art teacher; Gardel was