"Bringing the Museum to You"

The Cyber Art Show continues our study of American landscape painters in the Public Domain with the first of two 12-piece Exhibitions of works by Thomas Pollock Anshutz (1851-1912), co-founder of The Darby School and leader at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

 

Anshutz was born and grew up in in Newport, Kentucky and Wheeling, West Virginia. In the early 1870s he attended art classes at the National Academy of Design, studying under Lemuel Wilmarth. After he moved to Philadelphia in 1875, Anshutz took classes at the Phildelphia Sketch Club, where he received instruction from Thomas Eakins, who would become a close friend and large influence on him. Eakins began teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1876, the same year that Anshutz enrolled as a student. Eakins incorporated photography in his art classes, and Ansutz used a camera to shoot pictures and make prints of models. He also participated in Eakins's The Naked Series, photographing nude models in seven pre-defined standing poses. In 1886 Eakins was forced to resign from the Academy after causing a scandal by using a fully-nude male model in front of an all-female class. Anshutz not only condemned Eakins’ behavior, but took his teaching position at the Academy.

 

After marrying in 1892, Anshutz and his bride honeymooned in Paris, where he enrolled for classes at the Académie Julian. They would return to Philadelphia in 1893.

 

While he still painted landscapes, Anshutz won numerous awards in the 1890s and 1900s for his portraiture, including a silver medal at the 1904 World's Fair, the Gold Medal of Honor at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1909, and a gold medal at the Buenos Aires International Exposition in 1910.

 

Anshutz and Hugh Breckenridge co-founded the Darby School In 1898. During his time at Darby Anshutz experimented in styles ranging from en plein painting to bright oils to abstract works. 

Anshutz was elected as an Associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1910 and also served as president of the Philadelphia Sketch Club.  He retired from teaching in the fall of 1911 due to poor health and died on June 16, 1912.

 

Notable collections of Anshutz’s work can be found at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Carnegie Museum of Art.