Thomas Eakins
1884-1885
The Swimming Hole

Oil on canvas
27 3/8 x 36 3/8 in (69.5 x 92.4 cm)
 
Amon Carter Museum
The Swimming Hole (1884-5) features Eakins' finest studies of the nude, in his most successfully constructed outdoor picture.[1] The figures are those of his friends and students, and include a self-portrait. Although there are photographs by Eakins which relate to the painting, the picture's powerful pyramidal composition and sculptural conception of the individual bodies are completely distinctive pictorial resolutions.[2] The work was painted on commission, but was refused [3].
 
1. Lloyd Goodrich, Thomas Eakins. Harvard University Press (1982. ISBN 0-674-88490-6) Volume I, page 240.
2. Lloyd Goodrich, Thomas Eakins. Harvard University Press (1982. ISBN 0-674-88490-6) Volume I, pages 239-241.
3. Edward Hornor Coates commissioned the painting. It was Coates who, as chairman of the Committee on Instruction at the Pennsylvania Academy, was soon to request Eakins' resignation. Lloyd Goodrich, Thomas Eakins. Harvard University Press (1982. ISBN 0-674-88490-6), Volume I, page 286.
 
[Wikipedia, "Thomas Eakins", accessed: 3 June 2010]
 
LL/37594