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Thomas Eakins was a famous artist from Philadelphia who lived from 1844 to 1916. He focused much of his painting on local scenes in and around Philadelphia. Many of his subjects featured sporting themes...a few of these are featured above. One of my particular favorites is the railbird hunting scene above titled: Pushing for Rail. Railbird hunting is a rare and esoteric type of wingshooting and is limited to very select and and specific tidal marsh regions. This unique pursuit will likely be the subject of a future post with some contemporary photos since I will be going railbird shooting this September.
In the meantime, readers and Eakins fans on the West Coast can enjoy a rare exhibition of Eakins Sporting Art at the L.A. County Museum of Art. The current exhibit is entitled: "Manly Pursuits: The Sporting Images of Thomas Eakins."
Eakins did several wondeful scenes of rowing on the Schuylkill river which are some of the most familiar and popular. His boxing scenes from the old Philadelphia Arena are some of my other favorites and capture the tone and tenor of old time boxing.
If you happen to take in the L.A. exhibit...you may see Laguna Beach Trad admiring some of the Sporting canvases as he is rumoured to make his domicile in regions just South.
7 comments:
I love the single sculler.. Don't forget your promise to post s few of my favorite, Osthaus.
James...Osthaus is a treasure and one of my favorites as well. I'm on it so.. stay tuned.
Indeed I have an Osthaus print on my office wall...between 2 fine wood duck mounts.
The rowing pieces are gorgeous. As proud Kentuckians, many of the sporting art in our home is of the Sport of Kings, naturally. :)
Those are quite nice paintings. George Bellows is another great sporting artist - and sportsman as well. You might consider a post on him and his work. A really good contemporary Chesapeake Bay area artist is John Barber. Not typical sporting art but great images of workboats and watermen.
Best Regards,
JRC
Thanks Anon...fodder for future posts...I spend considerable time on THe Bat so Barber sounds interesting and I am on it.
Love the paintings. You have my permission to go rail bird hunting as long as you don't hurt anything.
Pemberley,Kinda hard to hunt those rails withoi=ut severely ruffling a few feathers. If you are lucky I will save you a few Rail-Bird breasts to serve as an appetizer at one of your fabulous parties. Thanks for stopping by.
JMW. I love horse racing art as well. Photos and paintings both. Bet you guys have some great stuff there in the Bluegrass.
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