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
Thomas Eakins pictorial resolutions. The work was painted on commission, but was refused. In the late 1890s Eakins returned to the male figure, this time in a more urban setting. "Taking the Count" (1896), a painting of a prizefight, was his second largest canvas, but not his most successful composition. The same may be said of "Wrestlers" (1899). More successful was "Between Rounds" (1899), for which boxer Billy Smith posed seated in his corner at Philadelphia's Arena; in fact, all the principal figures were posed by models re-enacting what had been an actual fight. "Salutat" (1898), a frieze-like composition in which the