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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... Death of Ella Crowell The Insanity of Lillian Hammitt Explanations and Enigmas Analyzing Eakins PART Two: Life and Art An American in Paris All in the Family Turning the Stake The Gross Clinic William Rush and His Model A Fine Old ROw ...
... Death of Ella Crowell The Insanity of Lillian Hammitt Explanations and Enigmas Analyzing Eakins PART Two: Life and Art An American in Paris All in the Family Turning the Stake The Gross Clinic William Rush and His Model A Fine Old ROw ...
Page 2
... his father's roof and died there in 1916. After his father's death he constructed a studio on the fourth floor. One can still discern the original roofline in the wall. Chapter WITHIN THE WALLS inspired them, and the equally.
... his father's roof and died there in 1916. After his father's death he constructed a studio on the fourth floor. One can still discern the original roofline in the wall. Chapter WITHIN THE WALLS inspired them, and the equally.
Page 6
... death of his father, since Eakins inherited only a third of his father's estate. Trying to position these characters within this maze makes one imagine the place as one of those transparent cut-away houses in a Jo Mielziner stage set—a ...
... death of his father, since Eakins inherited only a third of his father's estate. Trying to position these characters within this maze makes one imagine the place as one of those transparent cut-away houses in a Jo Mielziner stage set—a ...
Page 8
... death but a kind of death within life. Most nineteenth-century viewers were shocked by the painting's absence of hopefulness or religious sentiment. Surely it was no accident that Eakins chose to greet his visitors with this brutal and ...
... death but a kind of death within life. Most nineteenth-century viewers were shocked by the painting's absence of hopefulness or religious sentiment. Surely it was no accident that Eakins chose to greet his visitors with this brutal and ...
Page 14
... death in , Eakins's work was beginning to be admired among young artists and critics of advanced taste. Nonetheless, throughout this period it must have been difficult to get a sense of Eakins's achievement. At the time of his death ...
... death in , Eakins's work was beginning to be admired among young artists and critics of advanced taste. Nonetheless, throughout this period it must have been difficult to get a sense of Eakins's achievement. At the time of his death ...
Contents
Life and Art | 131 |
The Case of Thomas Eakins | 413 |
Acknowledgements | 478 |
Biographical Key | 481 |
Notes | 487 |
Bibliography | 537 |
Index | 559 |
Other editions - View all
Eakins Revealed: The Secret Life of an American Artist Henry Adams,Thomas Eakins Limited preview - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
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