Susan Macdowell Eakins Thomas in Roanoke, Virginia at the North Cross School. Her works included: 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
Thomas Eakins initiated the project and may have had the goal of a grand work befitting a showing at the Centennial Exposition of 1876. Though rejected for the Art Gallery, the painting was shown on the centennial grounds at an exhibit of a U.S. Army Post Hospital. In sharp contrast, another Eakins submission, "The Chess Players", was accepted by the Committee and was much admired at the Centennial Exhibition, and critically praised. At 96 by 78 inches (240 × 200 cm), "The Gross Clinic" is one of the artist's largest works, and considered by some to be his greatest. Eakins' high expectations