Portrait of Mrs. Helen Mac Knight (Portrait of a Mother)(c. 1903)
Thomas Eakins painted this ((c. 1903)), aged 59. It is now at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. More about this work
About this work
Thomas Eakins painted this ((c. 1903)), aged 59. It is now at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Thomas Eakins
American, 1844–1916 · Born and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Eakins studied in Paris under Jean-Léon Gérôme and was impressed in Spain by Velázquez and Ribera, then returned to Philadelphia, where he spent his life. He painted rowers, boxers and his city’s doctors and scholars with a frank realism grounded in anatomy, perspective and, later, photography. A demanding teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he was forced to resign in 1886 over his use of nude models. Max Schmitt in a Single Scull was the first of his rowing pictures.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 66.1496
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
