iSculpt.org

Thomas Eakins was a sculptor, but it's not in sculpting that he earned his fame and notoriety. His fame came primarily from his paintings and his notoriety primarily from his approach to teaching. Interestingly, though Eakins is known as a painter and photographer of figures, the few sculptures that he is known for are not human figures, but rather are sculptures of horses, such as the horses in the Lincoln and Grant Memorial in Brooklyn.

Like Rodin, I find several aspects of Eakins' character to be utterly fascinating. He was, like Rodin (and most notable figurative artists), supremely fascinated by the human body, both male and female, and he was also a great proponent of using technology — especially photography — to further his art. He also was a bit of a curmudgeon and didn't much respect authority when it disagreed with him, and that combined with his rather progressive feelings about the body during the height of the Victorian era led to some minor scandals.

Among other things, he tried to get permission to advertise for more "upstanding" women to work as models (the school required them to use prostitutes), successfully lobbied to get women students the right to be able to work from both male and female nude models, and he also photographed himself and several of his students (both male and female) in the nude. These things did not go over well with the Pennsylvania Academy, who eventually fired him. He was so popular a teacher, however, that when he formed the Art Student's League of Philadelphia after getting fired, a great many of his students left the Academy and followed him over.

I'm going to present a number of Eakins' nude photographs without further commentary. Unfortunately, a great number of the photographs he took were destroyed after his death, but still some wonderful ones remain; this is just a small sampling. Most of these images are displayed at smaller than full size, so click on them to see a higher resolution version. Oh, and if you're curious, the last picture is a self-portrait of Eakins carrying a female model.