Mother (Annie Williams Gandy)

About this artwork

Annie Williams Gandy, affectionately nicknamed “Mother,” was a close friend of Thomas Eakins and his wife. One critic noted Eakins’s ability to capture an expression in which “mere thinking is portrayed without the aid of gesture or attitude.” (Simpson, “The 1880s,” Thomas Eakins, 2002) Here, Eakins enlists the viewer in an intimate, pensive moment, portraying Annie in a morning coat and braids to suggest that she has just risen from bed. While the subject of women lost in reverie ...

About the Artist

Thomas Eakins · 1844–1916

Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) was an American painter, photographer, and educator who carried 19th-century American Realism to its highest achievement. Based in Philadelphia throughout his life, he created uncompromising portraits and genre scenes that depicted American life with a scientific precision and psychological depth unprecedented in his time. Born into an educated Philadelphia family, Eakin...