21 Photographs

Thomas EAKINS

Item#: 102190 We're sorry, this item has been sold

21 Photographs
21 Photographs
21 Photographs

"IN PURSUANCE OF MY BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL STUDIES, I USE THE NAKED MODEL" (THOMAS EAKINS): LIMITED FIRST EDITION OF 21 PHOTOGRAPHS, ONE OF ONLY 200 COPIES

EAKINS, Thomas. 21 Photographs. Atlanta: Olympia Galleries, 1979. Tall quarto, original half brown morocco, marbled boards, original slipcase.

Limited first edition, number 67 of only 200 copies, featuring 21 tipped-in photographic prints from original prints made by Eakins while at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts—including eleven images never before published—a beautiful copy.

"In 1883, the year in which these images were made, proper Philadelphians still resisted having nude models in their Academy. Students had to content themselves with studying and working from cold and lifeless classical sculpture. As a result of his earlier study in Paris, Eakins believed that in order to draw the human figure, one should study from a live model and he began to introduce the nude to his classes… While many of these photographs were used as studies for his major painting, most of the compositions are finished works of art… This collection is an aid to understanding more clearly the sensitive eye of Eakins and his need to seek truth in his subject matter. With these photographs, Eakins and his students had a source they could continuously refer to for anatomical facts rather than trust memory, which had been the case until his experiments with the camera" (Seraphin). With 21 photographic prints by Joseph Byrd of Eakins' photographs: seven in Group I, "Models in Greek Costume", five in Group II, "Studio Nudes," and nine in Group III, "Arcadian Studies"—including three related to his famous painting, "The Swimming Hole." Featuring eleven images that are "believed unknown to current scholarship and have not been previously published," including all five images in "Studio Nudes" and three nude studies in "Arcadian Studies." Appendix with correspondence by Eakins concerning his resignation from the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. Edited by Elizabeth Kerr. Foreword by Joseph A. Seraphin of Olympia Galleries, and Introduction by Seymour Adelman. Book designed by Bruce Rogers.

A fine copy.

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