Thomas Pollock Anshutz

"Anshutz" redirects here. Not to be confused withAnschütz.

Thomas Anshutz
Anshutz, ca. 1900
Born	Thomas Pollock Anshutz (1851-10-05)October 5, 1851 Newport, Kentucky United States
Died	June 16, 1912(1912-06-16)(aged 60) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania United States
Nationality	American
Education	National Academy of Design Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Académie Julian
Known for	Painter Arts administrator
Notable work	The Ironworkers' Noontime
Awards	Silver,1904 World's Fair Gold,1909, Pennsylvania Academy Gold,1910, Buenos Aires International Exposition

Thomas Pollock Anshutz(October 5, 1851 – June 16, 1912) was an American painter and teacher. Known for his portraiture and genre scenes, Anshutz was a co-founder of The Darby School. One ofThomas Eakins's most prominent students, he succeeded Eakins as director of drawing and painting classes at thePennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Personal life and education

Anshutz was born inNewport, Kentuckyin 1851. He grew up in Newport andWheeling, West Virginia.His early art instruction took place at theNational Academy of Designin the early 1870s, where he studied underLemuel Wilmarth.In 1875, he moved toPhiladelphiaand studied with Thomas Eakins at thePhiladelphia Sketch Club,beginning a close association between the two.

In 1892, Anshutz married Effie Shriver Russell. The two spent their honeymoon inParis,where Anshutz attended classes atAcadémie Julian.In 1893 they returned to Philadelphia.Later in his life he proclaimed himself asocialist.He retired from teaching in the fall of 1911 due to poor health and died on June 16, 1912.

Career

Association with Eakins andThe Ironworkers' Noontime

A Rose,1907;Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1876, Anshutz enrolled as a student at thePennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,the same year Thomas Eakins began teaching there. Eakins was Chief Demonstrator ofAnatomyandChristian Schusselewas Professor of Drawing and Painting. In 1878 Anshutz became Eakins's assistant, eventually succeeding Eakins as Chief Demonstrator when Eakins was promoted to Professor of Drawing and Painting. In 1880, while still a student, Anshutz completed his first major work,The Ironworkers' Noontime.

The Ironworkers' Noontime,Anshutz's most well known painting, depicts twenty-or-so workers on their break in the yard of afoundry.Painted nearWheeling, West Virginia,it is conceived in a naturalistic style similar to that of Eakins, although Eakins never painted industrial subjects.The piece was exhibited at the Philadelphia Sketch Club in 1881 and compared to Eakins's work byart critics.Art historian Randall C. Griffin has written of it: "One of the first American paintings to depict the bleakness of factory life,The Ironworkers' Noontimeappears to be a clear indictment of industrialization. Its brutal candor startled critics, who saw it as unexpectedly confrontational—a chilling industrial snapshot not the least picturesque or sublime. "It is now in the collection of theFine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Around 1880, Eakins became involved in photography, incorporating it into his classes and using it as a tool for his artwork. Anshutz and other students at the academy started to make use of thecamera,posing models and makingprintsfor study. Anshutz participated in Eakins'sThe Naked Series,photographingnude modelsin seven pre-defined standing poses. He modeled for Eakins himself, along with colleagues such asJ. Laurie Wallaceand Covington Few Seiss, who would pose outdoors nude, oftenwrestling,swimmingandbo xing.Eadweard Muybridgeeventually made his way to Philadelphia and Anshutz and Eakins helped build Muybridge'szoopraxiscope.

Loincloth incident

Main article:Loincloth incident

Eakins was forced to resign from the academy in an 1886 scandal that was sparked by his use of a fully nude male model in front of either an all-female or a mixed-male-and-female class. Anshutz did not defend his mentor; he co-signed a letter to thePhiladelphia Sketch Club:"We hereby charge Mr. Thom^sEakins with conduct unworthy of a gentleman & discreditable to this organization & ask his expulsion from the club."

Maturity

Anshutz was promoted to Eakins's position at the academy. Anshutz would briefly travel to Europe, focusing primarily on his teaching in Philadelphia. Numerous artists studied under Anshutz, includingElizabeth Sparhawk-Jones,George Luks,Charles Demuth,John Sloan,Charles Sheeler,Everett Shinn,John Marin,William Glackens,Robert HenriandMargaret Taylor Fox.As a teacher, Anshutz, according to art historian Sanford Schwartz, "was known as much for his approachability as his sarcasm, which apparently wasn't of the withering variety."

The Anshutz family regularly vacationed inHolly Beach, New Jerseywhich served as a creative place for the painter. There he experimented withwatercolors,brightcolor palette,and simple compositions. He also photographed the natural environment, utilizing the images as studies for paintings, specifically Holly Beach and trips down theDelawareandMauricerivers. Although Anshutz experimented persistently with landscape painting, he was more well known for hisportraiture,which won him numerous awards in the 1890s and 1900s. In 1898 he andHugh Breckenridgeco-founded the Darby School, asummer schooloutside of Philadelphia which emphasizedplein airpainting. At Darby, Anshutz created his mostabstractworks, a series of brightoillandscape paintingsthat were never exhibited. He continued to participate in the Darby School until 1910. He was elected as an Associate member of theNational Academy of Designin 1910. He served as president of the Philadelphia Sketch Club.

Legacy

In 1971 Robert and Joy McCarty, who lived in the home formerly owned by the Anshutz family inFort Washington, Pennsylvania,donateda portion of letters,glass negatives,and photographs to theArchives of American Art.A second donation from the Anshutz family took place in 1971 and 1972. The materials weremicrofilmedand returned to the family.

Notable collections

• Boys with a Boat, Ohio River, near Wheeling, West Virginia,1880;Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Dissecting Room,ca. 1879;Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
• Two Boys by a Boat,1895;Carnegie Museum of Art

Gallery

• 
  The Farmer and His Son at Harvesting,1879.
• 
  The Ironworkers' Noontime,1880,Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
• 
  Landscape with grey sky
• 
  Figurepiece,1909.
• 
  Portrait of Rebecca H. Whelan,c. 1910.
• 
  Woman writing on a table,c. 1905.
• 
  The flowered gown.
• 
  Portrait of Marthe Hientz

Bibliography

• Griffin, Randall C. (2004).Homer, Eakins, & Anshutz: The Search for American Identity in the Gilded Age.University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.ISBN0-271-02329-5
• Schwartz, Sanford (1982).The Art Presence.New York: Horizon Press.ISBN0-8180-0135-6
• Sullivan, Mark. "Pennsylvania Impressionism."Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia,online at philadelphiaencyclopedia.org.
• Sullivan, Mark W. "The Darby School of Art: A Forgotten Chapter in the History of American Impressionist and Modern Painting" (Havertown, PA: Brookline Books, 2023)

External links

• Works by or about Thomas Pollock Anshutzat theInternet Archive
• Thomas Anshutz at American Art Gallery