" She studied privately with William Sartain, a friend of Eakins and a New York artist invited to Philadelphia to teach a group of art students, starting in 1881.

In 1889 he became the subject of the largest painting ever made by the Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins, called The Agnew Clinic, in which he is shown conducting a mastectomy operation before a gallery of students and doctors.

Among her fellow students was Thomas Eakins, later the controversial director of the Academy.

Eakins believed in teaching by example and letting the students find their own way with only terse guidance.

Of Eakins ' later portraits, many took as their subjects women who were friends or students.

Eakins married Susan Hannah Macdowell, one of his students at the Academy, in 1884.

After their childless marriage, she only painted sporadically and spent most of her time supporting her husband's career, entertaining guests and students, and faithfully backing him in his difficult times with the Academy, even when some members of her family aligned against Eakins.

He taught hundreds of students, among them his future wife Susan Macdowell, African-American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner, and Thomas Anshutz, who taught, in turn, Robert Henri, George Luks, John Sloan, and Everett Shinn, future members of the Ashcan School, and other realists and artistic heirs to Eakins ' philosophy.

These controversies may have been caused by a combination of factors such as the bohemianism of Eakins and his circle ( in which students, for example, sometimes modeled in the nude for each other ), the intensity and authority of his teaching style, and Eakins's inclination toward unorthodox or provocative behavior.

Bonnat ’ s other students included Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, Walter Gay, and Frederic Vinton.

Some of Bonnat's more notable students include: John Singer Sargent, Stanhope Forbes, Gustave Caillebotte, Prince Eugen, Duke of Närke, Gustaf Cederström, Laurits Tuxen, P. S. Krøyer, Suzor-Coté, Alfred Philippe Roll, Georges Braque, Thomas Eakins, Raoul Dufy, Jean Béraud, Marius Vasselon, Hubert-Denis Etcheverry, Fred Barnard, Louis Béroud, Paul de la Boulaye, Aloysius O ' Kelly, Erik Werenskiold, Edvard Munch, Alphonse Osbert, Henry Siddons Mowbray, Charles Sprague Pearce, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Walter Tyndale.

Eakins ’ s progressive views and ability to excite and inspire his students would have a profound effect on Tanner.

The young artist proved to be one of Eakins ’ s favorite students ; two decades after Tanner left the Academy Eakins painted his portrait, making him one of a handful of students to be so honored.

In the mid-1880s, she was receiving commissions from notable Philadelphians and earning $ 500 per portrait, comparable to what Eakins commanded.

In 1886 Thomas Eakins was famously dismissed from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art for removing the loincloth from a male model in a mixed classroom.

Charles Burchfield, whom Hopper admired and whom he was compared to, said of Hopper, “ he achieves such a complete verity that you can read into his interpretations of houses and conceptions of New York life any human implications you wish .” He also attributed Hopper ’ s success to his “ bold individualism … In him we have regained that sturdy American independence which Thomas Eakins gave us, but which for a time was lost .” Hopper considered this a high compliment since he considered Eakins the greatest American painter.

Thomas Eakins ' painting The Gross Clinic was housed at Jefferson University from 1876 to 2006.

Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins ( July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916 ) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator.

No less important in Eakins ' life was his work as a teacher.

Eakins was a controversial figure whose work received little by way of official recognition during his lifetime.

Eakins was born and lived most of his life in Philadelphia.

He was the first child of Caroline Cowperthwait Eakins, a woman of English and Dutch descent, and Benjamin Eakins, a writing master and calligraphy teacher of Scots-Irish ancestry.

It was a completely original conception, true to Eakins ' firsthand experience, and an almost startlingly successful image for the artist, who had struggled with his first outdoor composition less than a year before.

A similar study was made of the anatomy of horses ; acknowledging Eakins ' expertise, in 1891 his friend the sculptor William Rudolf O ' Donovan asked him to collaborate on the commission to create bronze equestrian reliefs of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant for the Soldiers ' and Sailors ' Memorial Arch in Grand Army Plaza In Brooklyn.

Owing to Eakins ' devotion to working from life, the Academy's course of study was by the early 1880s the most " liberal and advanced in the world ".

Eakins spent nearly a year on the painting, again choosing a novel subject, the discipline of modern surgery, in which Philadelphia was in the forefront.

Eakins was elated by the project and stated that " it is very far better than anything I have ever done ".

But if Eakins hoped to impress his home town with the picture, he was to be disappointed ; public reaction to the painting of a realistic surgical incision and the resultant blood was ambivalent at best, and it was finally purchased by the college for the unimpressive sum of $ 200.

Done in a more informal setting than The Gross Clinic, it was a personal favorite of Eakins, and The Art Journal proclaimed " it is in every respect a more favorable example of this artist's abilities than his much-talked-of composition representing a dissecting room.

After Eakins obtained a camera in 1880, several paintings, such as Mending the Net ( 1881 ) and Arcadia ( 1883 ), are known to have been derived at least in part from his photographs.

Eakins borrowed it for subsequent exhibitions, where it drew strong reactions, such as that of the New York Daily Tribune, which both acknowledged and damned its powerful image, " but the more one praises it, the more one must condemn its admission to a gallery where men and women of weak nerves must be compelled to look at it.

The Philadelphia Chippendale chair seen in several Eakins paintings — such as William Rush Carving his Allegorical Figure of Schuylkill River ( 1877 ) and the bas-relief Knitting ( 1883 ) -- was owned by Mitchell.

Many 19th century history paintings of classical characters such as Hyacinth, Ganymede and Narcissus can also be interpreted as homoerotic ; the work of late 19th century artists ( such as Thomas Eakins, Eugène Jansson, Henry Scott Tuke, Aubrey Beardsley and Magnus Enckell ); through to the modern work of fine artists such as Paul Cadmus and Gilbert & George.

Eakins encouraged new methods such as study from live models, direct discussion of anatomy in male and female classes, and dissections of cadavers to further familiarity and understanding of the human body.

He frequently studied the works of realist painters such as Edgar Degas, Edward Hopper, and Thomas Eakins, who are strongly represented in the Art Institute's collection.

Today, the collection includes masterworks by such artists as Alexander Calder, Thomas Cole, Stuart Davis, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Georgia O ' Keeffe, John Singer Sargent, Charles Demuth, Martin Johnson Heade and Alfred Stieglitz.

As well, Eakins produced a number of large paintings which brought the portrait out of the drawing room and into the offices, streets, parks, rivers, arenas, and surgical amphitheaters of his city.

Although witnesses and chaperones were usually on site, and the poses were mostly traditional in nature, the sheer quantity of the photos and Eakins ’ overt display of them may have undermined his standing at the Academy.

As usual, most of the sitters were engaged at Eakins ' request, and were given the portraits when Eakins had completed them.

In spite of limitations -- and what artist is free of them ?-- Eakins ' achievement was monumental.

He was our first major painter to accept completely the realities of contemporary urban America, and from them to create powerful, profound art ... In portraiture alone Eakins was the strongest American painter since Copley, with equal substance and power, and added penetration, depth, and subtlety.