ART GALLERY - Thomas Eakins

Thomas Eakins (American Realist Painter 1844-1916) - Cowboys in the Badlands. Eakins made to the Dakota Badlands in the summer of 1887. The cowboys are loosely modeled after photographs Eakins took in the Badlands. The horses are purchases from his trip. When he returned, the artist photographed and sketched them at his sister's farm in Avondale, Pennsylvania. Eakins went to the Badlands to recover from a devastating blow in his career, his dismissal from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in February of 1886. The trip to the Badlands restored his energy and spirits. The poet Walt Whitman, who met Eakins shortly before his trip, described Eakins as "run down and out of sorts" when he left, but "built up miraculously" upon his return. Eakins's affection for the western landscape and his reflective experience comes through in this quiet painting.