Thomas Eakins

Peter Schjeldahl

[A] marvelously detailed catalogue.
—New Yorker

Town & Country

. . . [P]roves the greatness of the 19th-century American artist. . . handsomely designed. . . includes. . . watercolors, photographs, and sculpture - all strokes of genius. (Town & Country

Publishers Weekly

Accompanying the first major retrospective in more than 20 years of a major American artist, this catalogue is simply ravishing. Eakins (1844-1916) produced some of the most hauntingly beautiful pastoral paintings and portraits of any era, in a manner related to but distinct from contemporaries J.M. Whistler and Winslow Homer. Sewell, Robert L. McNeil Jr. curator of American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (in Eakins's home city, whence the exhibit originates), divides Eakins's career into four distinct periods, bringing together compelling strands of Eakins scholarship, particularly on the systematic sets of photographs the artist took and from which he often worked, including Muybridgian motion studies. Seeing and reading about the transformation of enigmatic sepia-toned photographic nudes (often including the artist) into Eakins's art is little short of breathtaking. The "homotextuality" of many of them has been the subject of much recent critical inquiry, but the essays gathered by Sewell are assiduously noncommittal as to Eakins's sexual practice. There are more than 575 illustrations in all, 250 of which are in color and full-page. Fabulously printed, thoughtful and formally exhaustive, this will be the definitive Eakins catalogue for the foreseeable future. (Nov.) Forecast: The exhibition which will be in Philadelphia from October through January, travels to Paris's Mus?e d'Orsay and the Met in New York over the next year; it should be a blockbuster that results in strong sales at the museum shops. Gift tables (especially gay and lesbian) and university libraries are also a lock price will deter few, given the lavishness of the printing. Copyright 2001 Cahners BusinessInformation.

Library Journal

Unlike his aristocratic contemporaries John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase, the great 19th-century realist painter Thomas Eakins depicted more prosaic topics, such as people boxing and rowing and musicians at work. While his pictures lack the enigmatic air that his peers achieved, in his passion and exactitude Eakins can be favorably compared with his idols Vel zquez and Rembrandt. He was both a hero to his students and an outcast from the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, where he was forced to resign in 1886 after daring to study the male nude with female students. This enormous volume accompanies the largest retrospective of his work yet, organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In addition to 60 well-known easel pictures, the exhibition and this catalog includes some 120 photographs as well as examples of his work in watercolor, drawing, and sculpture. As an event, it's a turning point in expanding Eakins's reputation; only in recent decades have critics taken note of his efforts beyond painting. Several lengthy and interesting biocritical essays, themselves making up 175 pages of text, separate four sections of color plates. This is clearly the definitive monograph on one of the most significant artists America has produced. Recommended for all libraries. Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.