Portrait: The Life of Thomas Eakins Book

"Provocative.... McFeely sensitively chronicles the maturation of this enigmatic Philadelphian."â??Matthew Price, New York Times Book Review Thomas Eakins painted two worlds in nineteenth-century America: one sure of its valuesâ??statesmen, scientists, and philosophersâ??and one that offered an uncertain vision of the changing times. From the shadow of his mother's depression to his fraught identity as a married man with homosexual inclinations, to his failure to sell his work in his day, Eakins was a man marked equally by passion and melancholy. In this enlightening examination of Eakins's defining artistic moments and key relationshipsâ??with wife Susan MacDowell, with subject and friend Walt Whitman, and with several leading scientists of his timeâ??William S. McFeely sheds light on the motivations and desires of a founder of American realism.Read More