Eakins Revealed: The Secret Life of an American ArtistThomas Eakins is widely considered one of the great American painters, an artist whose uncompromising realism helped move American art from the Victorian era into the modern age. He is also acclaimed as a paragon of integrity, one who stood up for his artistic beliefs even when they brought him personal and professional difficulty--as when he was fired from the Pennsylvania Academy of Art for removing a model's loincloth in a drawing class. Yet beneath the surface of Eakins's pictures is a sense of brooding unease and latent violence--a discomfort voiced by one of his sitters who said his portrait "decapitated" her. In Eakins Revealed, art historian Henry Adams examines the dark side of Eakins's life and work, in a startling new biography that will change our understanding of this American icon. Based on close study of Eakins's work and new research in the Bregler papers, a major collection never fully mined by scholars, this volume shows Eakins was not merely uncompromising, but harsh and brutal both in his personal life and in his painting. Adams uncovers the bitter personal feuds and family tragedies surrounding Eakins--his mother died insane and his niece committed suicide amid allegations that Eakins had seduced her--and documents the artist's tendency toward psychological abuse and sexual harassment of those around him. This provocative book not only unveils new facts about Eakins's life; more important, it makes sense, for the first time, of the enigmas of his work. Eakins Revealed promises to be a controversial biography that will attract readers inside and outside the art world, and fascinate anyone concerned with the mystery of artistic genius. |
From inside the book
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The Secret Life of an American Artist Henry Adams. was a much richer story here, as well as a much darker one. In fact, the papers seemed to me to provide the elements necessary for a complete reinterpretation of Eakins and a deeper ...
The Secret Life of an American Artist Henry Adams. was a much richer story here, as well as a much darker one. In fact, the papers seemed to me to provide the elements necessary for a complete reinterpretation of Eakins and a deeper ...
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The Secret Life of an American Artist Henry Adams. inspired them, and the equally narrow interpersonal landscape they ... art center, and when I first visited, it was being renovated for such use. A portable toilet for the workmen stood ...
The Secret Life of an American Artist Henry Adams. inspired them, and the equally narrow interpersonal landscape they ... art center, and when I first visited, it was being renovated for such use. A portable toilet for the workmen stood ...
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The Secret Life of an American Artist Henry Adams. Elizabeth at the Piano, . Oil on canvas, 1⁄8 x 2⁄16 in. © Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, all rights reserved, gift of an ...
The Secret Life of an American Artist Henry Adams. Elizabeth at the Piano, . Oil on canvas, 1⁄8 x 2⁄16 in. © Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, all rights reserved, gift of an ...
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The Secret Life of an American Artist Henry Adams. Sidney Wainthrob of Budd Studios, Lloyd Goodrich with the Painting Human Pool Tables, , by Reginald Marsh at the Whitney Museum of American Art in . Frances Mulhall ...
The Secret Life of an American Artist Henry Adams. Sidney Wainthrob of Budd Studios, Lloyd Goodrich with the Painting Human Pool Tables, , by Reginald Marsh at the Whitney Museum of American Art in . Frances Mulhall ...
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... artist as well as in every general textbook and survey of American art. Now that these documents have again become accessible (along with the notes that Goodrich made for his book), it becomes evident that Goodrich deliberately ...
... artist as well as in every general textbook and survey of American art. Now that these documents have again become accessible (along with the notes that Goodrich made for his book), it becomes evident that Goodrich deliberately ...
Contents
Life and Art | 131 |
The Case of Thomas Eakins | 413 |
Acknowledgements | 478 |
Biographical Key | 481 |
Notes | 487 |
Bibliography | 537 |
Index | 559 |
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Eakins Revealed: The Secret Life of an American Artist Henry Adams,Thomas Eakins Limited preview - 2005 |
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