Mechanics' Bank director Edward H. Coates was a businessman and art patron most notorious for his association with Thomas Eakins, perhaps the greatest American realist painter. As chairman of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ Committee on Instruction, Coates was instrumental in appointing Eakins as director and supported reforms like teaching anatomy from nude models instead of plaster casts. In 1883, the two served together on a University of Pennsylvania's committee to oversee the photographer Eadweard Muybridge's pioneering studies of human and animal movement. However, he soon grew uncomfortable with many of his practices, especially his use of students as models. In 1885, he commissioned "The Swimming Hole," but rejected the finished painting for its explicit and erotic depiction of male students and friends. The following year, he fired Eakins for removing a drapery from a male model in front of female students, though he continued to buy his paintings.