Eakins, Thomas (1844–1916)
US painter, a leading realist. His most memorable subjects are medical and sporting scenes, characterized by strong contrasts between light and shade, as in his controversial The Gross Clinic (1875; Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia), a group portrait of a surgeon, his assistants, and students. In his later years he painted distinguished portraits.
| Born in Philadelphia, Eakins attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, later becoming an instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy. He studied with the French academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) in Paris in the 1860s and on a European tour was strongly influenced by Rembrandt, Velázquez, and Ribera. He was dismissed from his post at the Pennsylvania Academy for removing the loincloth from a nude model. |
| Among his larger-than-life-size sculptures commissioned for public monuments are the war memorials in Trenton, New Jersey, and Brooklyn, New York. |
