Thomas Anshutz papers

ArchivalResource

Thomas Anshutz papers

Thomas Anshutz papers

circa 1870-1942

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw90411819e-a578-4abd-be85-0d928aab40fd

The papers of Thomas Anshutz measure 2.76 linear feet and document his education and career as a painter, photographer, and art instructor. The collection is particularly rich in photographs made between approximately 1880 and 1900, when Anshutz and others at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, under the direction of Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), began using photography as an aid in the study of the figure and as studies for paintings. Also found are correspondence, a notebook with scattered sketches, a handful of clippings regarding Anshutz's career, and scattered notes and printed materials.Photographs include vintage, original prints that were made during the period when Anshutz worked closely with Thomas Eakins, between 1880 and 1886, consisting of portraits, figure studies both nude and clothed, and class groups both posed and informal. Among the nude photographs are pastoral figure studies with Eakins himself as the model. This collection does not include any of the photographs from Eakins' so-called aked Series," although a triptych of three figure studies of Eadweard Muybridge closely resembles photographs from that series. Prints from this period are small in size and are probably original contact prints. Also found are 49 glass negatives and 3 prints that Thomas Anshutz likely made in the 1890s, mostly of figures and marine subjects, many of which were used in his paintings of that period. Additional unattributed photographs of similar subjects are also found, as well as professional studio portraits of Eakins and others, and a handful of photographs that seem to have been made at a later time and kept by the family, which depict Anshutz, his studio, the Philadelphia Sketch Club, and Anshutz's artwork.Dates and attributions made in this finding aid are taken from scholarly and curatorial publications based on primary sources, including <emph render="italic">Eakins and the Photograph</emph> (1994) by Susan Danly and Cheryl Leibold; <emph render="italic">Thomas Eakins</emph> (2002), catalog to the exhibition <emph render="italic">Thomas Eakins: American Realist</emph> at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, especially the chronology by Kathleen Brown; <emph render="italic">The Photography of Thomas Eakins</emph> (1972) by Gordon Hendricks; and <emph render="italic">Thomas Anshutz: Artist and Teacher</emph> (1994) by Randall C. Griffin. See the series descriptions below for additional information on the attribution and identification of photographs in this collection.

eng,

Archives of American Art