Woodmere Art Museum
(above: James Toogood, "The Woodmere Art Museum," watercolor on paper, 18 1/4" x 26," gift of the artist)
Philadelphia, PA
215-247-0476
http://www.woodmereartmuseum.org/
Susan Macdowell Eakins
Sept. 16 - Dec. 9, 2001
Long in the shadow
of her more famous husband, Thomas Eakins, painter Susan Macdowell Eakins
was 
nonetheless an exceptionally
talented artist, whose own career took a back seat to that of her spouse.
Before marrying Thomas Eakins in 1884, she was his student at the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts where she underwent the same rigorous training
required of every Eakins student. Susan Macdowell Eakins has the distinction
of winning the Academy's Mary Smith Prize in 1879 for the best painting
by a matriculating woman artist. Other winners of the Smith Prize included
Cecilia Beaux, Alice Barber Stephens, and Carol H. Beck. This focus exhibition
brings together 30 works from private and public collections, and coincides
with the Thomas Eakins retrospective
at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and an exhibition of Thomas Eakin's drawings at the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts. (left: Susan Macdowell Eakins, The Tennis
Player, 1933, oil on academy board, 18 5/8 x 15 inches, Canada Library,
Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa.)
Dr. Jeanette M. Toohey, Chief Curator, The Cummer Museum
of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, Florida, has written an essay in the 
exhibition catalogue titled Susan Macdowell Eakins:
A Modest Reappraisal. In her essay, Dr. Toohey says of Susan Eakins:
"Her disposition and considerable skills led to an early assimilation
of the more esoteric components of the artistic endeavor. Arguably the greater
challenge was for her to realize her true artistic self; that is, to explore
those avenues that held interest or promise whether or not they conformed
to expectations. Her artistic legacy remains as multi-dimensional as her
efforts to secure her husband's reputation. Happily the newly discovered
artistic and archival evidence considered in the context of established
scholarship and its bases compels us to continue to study the quiet
manifestations of a lifelong commitment to study and growth as well as an
intrepid spirit buoyed by inquiry and experimentation." (right:
Susan Macdowell Eakins, The Bibliophile, 1932, oil on canvas, 20
x 24 inches, Canada Library, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa)
rev. 10/31/01
Read more about the Woodmere Art Museum in Resource Library Magazine.
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line to see enlargements.
For further biographical information please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
This page was originally published in Resource Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for more information. rev. 6/3/11
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