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
Self-portrait (Thomas Eakins) Rarer still is such emphasis on the eye's liquid reflection, which accents the emotional impact of the image. The pose of the upper body is the same as that which Eakins used in "Portrait of Leslie W. Miller", painted in 1901. The painting is a fine example of Eakins' mature technique— "an unmatched demonstration of his absolute control of the medium"— and a powerful psychological study. Flesh and bone structure are painted with small strokes of fluid paint that offer a successful illusion of light-struck form, and at the same time the artist's self-depiction suggests emotional vulnerability. While presenting an