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'Eakins, Photographer' reveals inner darkness, beauty

In the annals of American art, few figures fascinate more than Thomas Eakins, the Philadelphia painter who seemed driven to probe the deepest reserves of his subjects, whether they were rowers, businessmen, surgeons, artists, matrons, or members of his own family. Smiles are almost nonexistent in his paintings; furrowed brows and somber expressions rule.

In the annals of American art, few figures fascinate more than Thomas Eakins, the Philadelphia painter who seemed driven to probe the deepest reserves of his subjects, whether they were rowers, businessmen, surgeons, artists, matrons, or members of his own family. Smiles are almost nonexistent in his paintings; furrowed brows and somber expressions rule.

Studying these melancholy and stoic images, several Eakins' biographers have guessed about the sorrows and conflicts in Eakins' life that were brought to bear in his paintings of others. It's widely assumed, for example, that his mother - who, according to her death certificate, died at 52 from "exhaustion" following "mania" in 1872 - had bipolar disorder requiring at least one hospital stay. And Eakins himself is known to have suffered an emotional breakdown after being fired from his teaching position at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

No wonder, then, that Eakins' photographs, taken purely for his own use and pleasure, can seem to offer the truest window into his thoughts and desires.

PAFA's new exhibition, "Thomas Eakins: Photographer," honoring the centenary of Eakins' death and co-organized by guest curator Susan Danly and by Anna Marley, PAFA's curator of Historical American Art, channels the artist we think we know, and much more.

Danly and Marley selected 60 photographs from PAFA's collection of 1200 Eakins prints and photo-related items to illustrate five sections in their show, including four specific bodies of work produced by Eakins from the 1880s through the 1890s, and a entire room of photographic portraits of Eakins taken by various photographers between 1850, when he was 6, to a portrait thought to have been shot between 1901 and 1905, when he was in his 60s.

To contemporary eyes, a section devoted to Eakins' use of photography while teaching at the Academy easily explains his dismissal from the school. Here, among photographs of nude models, are images of students, children, and Eakins himself posing unclothed, including one of him holding a nude model and lowering her to the ground.

Another section, focusing on his photographs of himself and his male students nude in Arcadian outdoor scenes - swimming and diving in a lake, playing pipes - confirms Eakins' exhibitionist streak. A photograph that probably served as a partial study for Eakins' famous 1884-85 painting Swimming, almost shocking in its black-and-white frankness, has a completely different character from its subsequent romantic rendering in color.

Eakins' photographs of women in historic costumes posed with colonial revival furniture suggest that he appreciated feminine beauty of the past - and that all things of the past gave him comfort.

But the Eakins who emerges from the section "Intimate Portraits: Family, Friends, and Animals" is a devoted husband, brother, son, and son-in-law; an animal lover; and a homebody. Harry, a candid portrait of his sister Margaret sitting on the doorstep of the family home at 1729 Mount Vernon Street, next to the family dog and looking grumpy about being the subject of her brother's camera, hints at the easy affection brother and sister had between them. A more studied portrait of a student and family friend who later herself became a photographer, Amelia Van Buren, reading a book with a cat on her shoulder, is one of the exhibition's tenderest photographs. It's also a testament to Eakins' eye for composition and use of light and shadow, qualities not always evident in his photographs.

The different personas attributed to Eakins over the years might be detected in the photographs taken of him throughout his life, although images of him after age 65 (if they exist) are not in the exhibition. The early daguerreotype and cartes-de-visite show him as a solemn-looking boy; albumen prints of him in formal sittings in his 20s and 30s depict a serious, ambitious young man. But, at about 1880, by which time he had begun taking photographs of his own, he had learned how to pose for the camera, and he did it beautifully, in portraits as dark and portentous as his paintings of other Philadelphians.

"Thomas Eakins: Photographer." Through Jan. 29 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 128 N. Broad St. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesdays; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Information: 215-972-7600 or www.pafa.org/visit.

"Circa 1995," at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery at UArts, catches a moment in Philadelphia's art-history timeline that shows six Philadelphia-based artists completely in tune with national and international stylistic and intellectual impulses of that time, and in some cases, foreshadowing trends to come.

A spare, elegant installation includes works by Tristin Lowe, Michael MacFeat, Virgil Marti, Eileen Neff, Stuart Netsky, and Jennie Shanker.

Lowe's emphatically abject The Bed, a stained old mattress with a spout of water emanating from its center, sets the tone.

"Circa 1995." Through Nov. 16 at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, 333 S. Broad St. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays; 12-5 p.m. Saturdays. Information: 215-717-6480 or www.uarts.edu/about/rosenwald-wolf-gallery.