Thomas Eakins

Thomas Eakins, “Between Rounds”, 1898-99, Oil on Canvas, 127 x 101cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Most of Thomas Eakins’s paintings after 1886 were probing portraits; however, he returned to sporting subjects in the late 1890s with a series that he began after attending professional boxing matches at the Philadelphia Arena, which was then located diagonally across from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The resulting canvases were as revolutionary in their subject matter as his rowing scenes had been more than two decades earlier.

Thomas Eakins’s boxing and wrestling paintings are, however, even bolder in their subject matter than his early rowing pictures. Although the popular press, starting about 1900, featured images of prize fighting and accounts of boxers such as the famous John L. Sullivan, most artists turned away from depicting ring sports, which were associated with sanctioned violence, gambling, and alcohol.

Eakins fastidiously planned his “Between Rounds”. Every person portrayed in the painting posed for him. Eakins invited Billy Smith, a local featherweight, to pose for the boxer, asked other figures from the boxing world to re-enact their real-life roles in his Chestnut Street studio, and enlisted friends and relatives to pose for the spectators. The interior scenic location was the actual hall used by the fighters.

Although the painting does not depict a specific bout, Thomas Eakins combined details from several to give it verisimilitude and worked diligently to capture the atmospheric effects of dust and smoke in the arena. As usual, he minimized the drama, showing Billy Smith catching his breath rather than struggling against Timothy Callahan, his unseen, and ultimately successful, opponent.

Thomas Eakins

Thomas Eakins, “Taking the Count”, Oil on Canvas, 1898, Yale University Art Gallery

“Taking the Count” is an 1898 painting by American artist Thomas Eakins that is part of the Yale University Art Collection. This depiction of the prizefight marks Eakins’ return to anatomical studies of the male figure, however in a more urban setting. This painting celebrates Thomas Eakins’s lifelong fascination with athleticism and human endurance. A fallen fighter struggles to recover from a punishing blow, as all eyes in the crowd focus on the referee counting off the seconds that could mark the end of the match.

The actual fight took place in Philadelphia on Friday, April 29, 1898, between Charley McKeever (standing) and Jack Daly and was refereed by H. Walter Schlichter. Until Eakins undertook the subject, visual representations of prize fighting had been found almost exclusively in the press and in prints. With this monumental painting, the first of Eakins’s three great boxing pictures, the artist placed the theme into the context of the fine arts, a stunning statement set against the genteel conventions of the period.

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Thomas Eakins

Thomas Eakins, “John Biglin in a Single Scull”, 1873, Watercolor on Paper, Yale University Art Gallery

Thomas Eakins was in the vanguard of the army of Americans who invaded Paris during the latter part of the nineteenth century to complete their artistic education. After returning to his hometown of Philadelphia in 1870, Eakins never left the United States again. He believed that great artists relied not on their knowledge of other artists’ works but on personal experience.

For the rest of his career, Eakins remained committed to recording realistic scenes from contemporary American life. During the three years Eakins was abroad, competitive rowing on the Schuylkill River, which runs through Philadelphia, had become the city’s leading sport. In England, rowing had long been regarded as the exclusive activity of gentlemen, but in Philadelphia anyone could take part, since rowing clubs made the expensive equipment available to all. Eakins was an enthusiastic rower himself, but after his time in Paris he regarded the activity less as a form of recreation than a fertile source of subject matter that combined his dedication to modern life with his interest in anatomy.

Thomas Eakins

Thomas Eakins, “Salutat”, 1898, Oil on Canvas, 126 x 101 cm, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts

“The exhibition (Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture”, 2010) attempts to ferret out the hidden clues. In the 1898 painting “Salutat” (Latin for “He salutes”), Eakins portrays a 22-year-old, featherweight boxer known as Turkey Point Billy Smith as he waves to the crowd after a victory. Boxing matches in those days were all-male retreats, renowned for their brutal masculinity. But Eakins does not paint Smith in the act of fighting. …

Instead, Smith is standing alone in scanty trunks that reveal most of his buttocks. The men in the crowd are ogling him much as they would a half-naked woman. This realistic 19th century sports scene is clearly homoerotic to 21st century eyes. But this aspect had long been ignored in shows and books about Eakins.” – Los Angeles Times

Thomas Eakins

Thomas Eakins, “Wrestlers”, 1899, Oil on Canvas, 123 x 153 cm, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California

“Wrestlers” is a name shared by three closely related 1899 paintings by Thomas Eakins. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art owns the finished painting and the oil sketch of the same scene. The Philadelphia Museum of Art owns a slightly smaller unfinished version. All three works depict a pair of nealy naked men engaged in a wrestling match. The setting for the finished painting is the Quaker City Barge Club which once stood on Philadelphia’s Boathouse Row.

On May 22, 1899, Eakins had two wrestlers pose in his fourth-floor studio on Mount Vernon Street in Philadelphia. Sportswriter Clarence Cranmer was there to give advice about positioning the wrestlers. Eakins painted the works from the live models and from a nearly identical photograph, most likely taken that day.

Eakins painted the finished “Wrestlers” for the National Academy Museum in New York as his so-called diploma painting when he was inducted into membership in 1902. It was acquired as a gift by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2006.