Thomas Eakins in New Garden

A small exhibition in the lobby of the Township Building tells the story of Thomas Eakins's summer visits to New Garden. Eakins ranks as one of the most important American artists of the 19th century. He lived and worked primarily in Philadelphia, but between 1877 and 1897 he spent part of each summer at the farm on Church Road where his sister Frances and her husband William Crowell raised their ten children. On those summer visits, Eakins worked on paintings and sculptures and took photographs of his family members and the flora and fauna of New Garden. The Crowell house, in which Eakins had a studio, does not survive, but the history of that house (known as the Isaac and Margaret Sharp House) is told on the New Garden Historical Commission website.

Eakins is renowned for paintings of distinguished doctors, scientists, and athletes in action, and for scenes of daily life, such as fisherman at work or riders in a horse-drawn carriage in the park. He tried to maximize the truthful realism of his paintings by basing them on careful research and scientific study of anatomy, linear perspective, reflections, objects in motion, and all the laws of nature and art. The illustrations in this display feature some of his best-known paintings as well as works related to his time in New Garden. One photograph shows Eakins working on a sculpture while the Crowell's horse Billy poses. Come by the exhibition to see a photo of the finished bronze version of Billy, with Abraham Lincoln riding him, that is now part of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch at the Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York.