Portrait: A Life of Thomas Eakins

McFeely Ph.D., William S.

ISBN 10: 0393050653 / ISBN 13: 9780393050653

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2006

About this Item

Near fine book and jacket.

Seller Inventory # 110134

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Portrait: A Life of Thomas Eakins
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393050653
• ISBN 13: 9780393050653
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Non-Fiction

About this title

Synopsis

The Philadelphian artist Thomas Eakins painted two worlds: one sure of its values - the surgeons, inventors, musicians and athletes of his time - and another that reflected his own struggles with depression and sexual identity. In this evenhanded account of those struggles, William S. McFeely sheds new light on Eakins' genius and on the evocative melancholy of his portraits, particularly of women, which include many of his remarkable wife, Susan McDowell Eakins. Those deeply perceptive paintings may be the greatest expressions of his art. One of America's leading historians, McFeely has long been an interpreter of nineteenth-century American writing. A fascinating aspect of this narrative is how he brings the painter into the company of Thoreau, Melville and Whitman, with whom Eakins formed a deep friendship.

About the Author

William S. McFeely is Abraham Baldwin Professor of the Humanities, Emeritus, at the University of Georgia. He is the author of Yankee Stepfather: General O. O. Howard and the Freedmen; Grant: A Biography, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Parkman Prize; Frederick Douglass, which received the Lincoln Prize; Sapelo’s People: A Long Walk into Freedom; and Proximity to Death.