Thomas Eakins Rediscovered: Charles Breglers Thomas Eakins Collection at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

About this book

More than fifty years ago a treasury of studio materialincluding oil sketches sculptures drawings photographs and manuscriptswas rescued from the empty house of Thomas Eakins by a devoted student Charles Bregler. Deemed worthless then the "rubbish" Bregler reverently saved has only recently become recognized as an important source of information about the life and working habits of one of Americas greatest artists. This book is both a catalogue of the Bregler collection and a reassessment of Eakinss career as read through the newly discovered materials. Kathleen A. Foster builds on the strengths of the collection to characterize the training teaching and studio practices of a nineteenth-century academic realist. Tracing Eakinss artistic education she looks to sources in both Philadelphia and Paris that shaped his seemingly uncontrived American style. Foster analyzes Eakinss habits as a draftsman unlocking his famous perspective drawings to reveal his idiosyncratic practices. She examines his innovation as a watercolorist and photographer and describes his distinctive academic procedures in oil paint and clay. Foster then investigates a series of Eakinss best known projects from the early sporting paintings to the late portraits to explain the sequence of his method the development of his imagery and the meaning that emerges from the interaction of subject and technique. Published in association with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Philadelphia Published in association with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Philadelphia