Philadelphia, PA : Philadelphia Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, [2012]
Added to CLICnet on 07/19/2013
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Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 159-167) and index.
- Introduction: studying The Gross Clinic / Kathleen A. Foster and Mark S. Tucker — Local hero: The Gross Clinic and our sense of civic identity / Steven Conn — Eakins as witness: the birth of modern surgery, 1844-89 / Mark S. Schreiner, MD — A portrait of ambition: Eakins, The Gross Clinic, and the American Centennial / Kathleen A. Foster — The making of The Gross Clinic / Kathleen A. Foster and Mark S. Tucker — The Gross Clinic in Philadelphia and New York, 1875-79 / Kathleen A. Foster — The challenge revisited: The Gross Clinic and The Agnew Clinic / Kathleen A. Foster — The changing painting: The Gross Clinic in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries / Mark S. Tucker — Conclusion: then and now / Kathleen A. Foster and Mark S. Tucker — Appendix: Commentary on The Gross Clinic, 1875-1917.
- Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) is acknowledged as one of the preeminent American painters of the 19th century. As a young artist in 1875 he prepared a monumental painting for the Philadelphia Centennial of Dr. Samuel D. Gross of Jefferson Medical College. Rejected by the selection committee for being too gruesome, The Gross Clinic is hailed today as the artist’s masterpiece. Purchased by the medical college, the work was a fixture there until 2006, when its threatened sale prompted thousands to donate funds to keep it in Philadelphia through a joint acquisition by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Kathleen A. Foster and Mark S. Tucker update the story of The Gross Clinic to the present day. They draw on discoveries made during the 2009-10 project to look more deeply into the history, aesthetics, and technique of the painting. Through their discussion, complemented by interpretations from the perspectives of cultural and medical history by Steven Conn and Mark S. Schreiner, M.D., respectively, this celebrated painting can now be understood anew. –Publisher’s website.
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Requested by Anderson, K.