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,
Thomas Eakins 1938. Thirty-five years after her death, in 1973, she had her first one-woman exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In the latter years of his life, Eakins' constant companion was the handsome sculptor Samuel Murray, who shared his interest in boxing and bicycling. The evidence suggests the relationship was more emotionally important to Eakins than that with his wife. Throughout his life, Eakins appears to have been drawn to those who were mentally vulnerable and then preyed upon those weaknesses. Several of his students ended their lives in insanity. Eakins died on June 25, 1916, at the age