In 1890, the painter Thomas Eakins was walking a tightrope. His pictures, gaining relative notice after two decades of dismissal, had become overshadowed by his contentious teaching career. Forced to resign from his central position at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1886 due to scandal and a smear campaign — driven by members of his own family — the 46-year- old was now head instructor to the Art Students’ League of Philadelphia, a rag-tag band of his most loyal students. Added to this tumult was the arrival of his 17-year-old niece, Ella Crowell, to live and study.
In the lengthy cast of characters that peopled Eakins’ life, Ella is one of the most enigmatic. And her status as an enigma is why Fitchburg Art Museum (FAM) has put up “Portrayed by Eakins: Ella Crowell as Model and Student,” running through June 2.
A small but beautiful exhibition of 21 photographs and three main pieces, it details Crowell from birth to suicide, placing her within the context of her uncle’s hectic scene and brilliant work.
The eldest child of Eakins’ sister, Frances, Ella’s first appearance is in his early painting “Baby at Play,” not on show at FAM, which finds the toddler Ella playing with toys on the floor. Soon after, the Crowells moved to the country, 35 miles southwest of Philadelphia in Avondale, and it is here that Eakins — one of the important innovators of photography’s usage in art — captured Ella and her family from behind his lens. A number of the photographs in “Portrayed by Eakins” show the Crowell farm’s landscape and home, the family together, individually and with their livestock.