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 House neighborhood. It is a four-story rowhouse, its first three stories brick and the fourth floor of wood frame construction. The front facade is three bays wide, with the main entrance in the right bay. Windows are set in rectangular openings, with simple marble sills and lintels. The rowhouse was built about 1854 for Benjamin Eakins, father of the artist. Benjamin Eakins added the fourth story in 1874 as a studio for his son. Thomas Eakins inherited the house in 1899, and lived there until his death in 1916. Eakins was a leading figure in the development of realism in painting,