Thomas Eakins

The Pianist (Stanley Addicks), 1896

oil on canvas

23 ½ x 19 ¾ in.

James E. Roberts Fund

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Thomas Eakins was born in Philadelphia and studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before traveling to Paris in 1866 to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He took anatomy courses at the Jefferson Medical College to make up for his lack of study of the living model. He taught art and anatomy at the Pennsylvania Academy and painted numerous portraits, many of which delved into the sitter’s personality.  He was known for his uncompromising realism, honesty and unsentimental approach to his work.  He was a master at painting portraits, not of the social elite but of his friends, students and people who interested him.  His portraits were intensely because of his knowledge of the human body and his deep psychological penetration.  Because of this uncompromising approach, recognition came late in life.

The portrait of The Pianist (Stanley Addicks) was painted at the height of Eakins career.

The painting relies on techniques learned in France, but adopts a blunt approach which dispenses with the ingratiating conventions of fashionable portraiture.  The portrait conveys Addicks’ lyrical, sensitive personality.  In addition, it endows him with a haunted expression that pervades Eakins’ late works.  Stanley Addicks, was a resident of Philadelphia. Addicks inner thoughts seem to have been tapped as he sits there staring abstractly into space as if some absorbing melody is running through his brain.   Eakins also painted Addicks’ wife, Weda Cook, immortalizing her in a full-length portrait known as The Concert Singer.

Reference

William Innes Homer. Thomas Eakins: His Life and Art, New York: Abbeville Press, 2002. ISBN-13: 978-0789207746