Between Rounds
Thomas Eakins, American, 1844 - 1916
Geography:
Made in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, North and Central America
Date:
1898-1899Medium:
Oil on canvasDimensions:
50 1/8 x 39 7/8 inches (127.3 x 101.3 cm) Curatorial Department:
American Art
1929-184-16Credit Line:
Gift of Mrs. Thomas Eakins and Miss Mary Adeline Williams, 1929
Made in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, North and Central America
Date:
1898-1899Medium:
Oil on canvasDimensions:
50 1/8 x 39 7/8 inches (127.3 x 101.3 cm) Curatorial Department:
American Art
* Gallery 218, American Art, second floor (Provident National Bank Gallery)
Accession Number:1929-184-16Credit Line:
Gift of Mrs. Thomas Eakins and Miss Mary Adeline Williams, 1929
Social Tags [?]
arena [x] balance [x] banners [x] boxer [x] boxing [x] fighter [x] frame-within-a-frame [x] isolation [x] neutral colors [x] painting [x] philadelphia [x] philadelphia artist [x] policeman [x] repetition [x] sports [x] us-born artist [x]Most of Eakins's paintings after 1886 were portraits, but he returned to sporting subjects in the late 1890s with a series that he began after attending professional boxing matches at the Philadelphia Arena (then located at the intersection of Broad and Cherry Streets, diagonally across from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). The resulting canvases were as revolutionary in their subject matter as his rowing scenes had been more than two decades earlier.
Eakins fastidiously planned Between Rounds. Susan Macdowell Eakins later recalled, "In Between Rounds every person in [the] picture posed for him. The interior was the Hall used by the fighters." Although the painting does not depict a specific bout, Eakins combined details from several to give it verisimilitude and worked diligently to capture the atmospheric effects of dust and smoke in the arena.
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