“Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important artists in American art history.”
“No less important in Eakins' life was his work as a teacher. As an instructor he was a highly influential presence in American art. The difficulties which beset him as an artist seeking to paint the portrait and figure realistically were paralleled and even amplified in his career as an educator, where behavioral and sexual scandals truncated his success and damaged his reputation.
Eakins also took a keen interest in the new technologies of motion photography, a field in which he is now seen as an innovator. Eakins was a controversial figure whose work received little by way of official recognition during his lifetime. Since his death, he has been celebrated by American art historians as "the strongest, most profound realist in nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century American art".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Eakins
My homage tonight is to Thomas Eakins the great American realist painter, and my fellow Pennsylvanian, born in Philadelphia in 1844. I photographed these boys swinging by a rope into the cold early spring creek and thought of Eakins masterpiece painting called, ““The Swimming Hole.” The painting was controversial in it’s day and continues to be because of the male nude figures.
The Swimming Hole, 1884-1885
http://www.adolphmenzel.org/upload1/file-admin/images/new20/Thomas%20Eakins-234449.jpg
I quote here from wikipedia.
Although the theme of male bathers was familiar in Western art, having been explored by artists from Michelangelo to Daumier,[7] Eakins' treatment was novel in American art at the time. The Swimming Hole has been "widely cited as a prime example of homoeroticism in American art".[8] In 2008, the art critic Tom Lubbock described Eakins' work as:
A classic of American painting. It shows a scene of healthy, manly, outdoor activity: a group of young fellows having stripped off for a dip. It is based on the swimming excursions that were enjoyed by the artist and his students. Eakins himself appears in the water at bottom right – in signature position, so to speak."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swimming_Hole
“The Swimming Hole” (also known as Swimming and The Old Swimming Hole) is an 1884–85 painting by the American artist Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), Goodrich catalog #190, in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Executed in oil on canvas, it depicts six men swimming naked in a lake, and is considered a masterpiece of American painting.[1] According to art historian Doreen Bolger it is "perhaps Eakins' most accomplished rendition of the nude figure",[2] and has been called "the most finely designed of all his outdoor pictures".[3] Since the Renaissance, the human body has been considered both the basis of artists' training and the most challenging subject to depict in art,[4] and the nude was the centerpiece of Eakins' teaching program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.[2] For Eakins, this picture was an opportunity to display his mastery of the human form.”
More Eakins paintings:
http://www.artcyclopedia.org/art/thomas-eakins-biglin.jpg
http://img.artknowledgenews.com/files2010july/Thomas-Eakins-Wrestlers.jpg
http://www.nccsc.net/asset/original_filename/703/Eakinsone.jpg
http://www.fineart-china.com/upload1/file-admin/images/new20/Thomas%20Eakins-287624.jpg