B.J. Blommers

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B.J. Blommers

Artist Thomas Eakins American, 1844-1916

Date1904

DimensionsFrame: 30 1/2 × 26 1/2 × 2 in. (77.5 × 67.3 × 5.1 cm)

MediumOil on canvas.

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineGift of Florence Scott Libbey

Object number

1937.16

Not on View

Collections

Paintings

Published References"Catalogue of the Works of Thomas Eakins," The Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin, XXV, Mar. 1930, p. 32 (as unlocated).

Goodrich, L., Thomas Eakins, His Life and Works, New York, 1933, p. 200, no. 412 (as unlocated).

McKinney, R., Thomas Eakins, New York, 1942, repr. p. 77.

Hendricks, G., The Life and Works of Thomas Eakins, New York, 1974, p. 336, no. 203, repr.

Siegl, T., The Thomas Eakins Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 1978, in no. 109.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, pp. 42-43, pl. 72.

L'Ecole de la Haye, Paris and The Hague, 1983, fig. 134, p. 166 (not in exhib.).

Stott, Annette, Holland Mania: the Unknown Dutch Period in American Art and Culture, Woodstock, NY, 1998, p. 32, fig. 7.

Exhibition HistoryArt Club of Philadelphia, Sixteenth Annual Exhibition, 1904, no. 89.

Venice, XXI Biennale di Venezia, 1938, no. 113.

Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Ontario. 1948.

Label TextWith an anti-establishment attitude and an uncompromising painting and teaching style, Thomas Eakins’ career was marked by controversy and little commercial success (he only sold about 30 paintings during his lifetime). However, his frank, realistic portraits and sporting scenes have since elevated him to one of the most revered of American artists. He painted Dutch artist B. J. Blommers (1845–1914) in Philadelphia in 1904. The portrait gives the impression of having been painted very quickly—look for areas of exposed canvas—despite the fact that Eakins usually required multiple sittings of his subjects. Eakins generally avoided decorative elegance and flattery in his portraits, offering instead an honest description of the sitter’s appearance and the suggestion of his or her inner, perhaps melancholy, thoughts. The intensity and psychological insight of Eakins’ late portraits have even drawn comparisons to Rembrandt.