Max Schmitt in a Single Scull (also known as The Champion Single Sculls or The Champion: Single Sculls) is an 1871 oil on canvas painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. It celebrates Eakins' childhood friend Max Schmitt's victory in a single scull competition on the Schuylkill River in the USA on October 5, 1870. The composition echoes the event by reproducing the conditions at the time and date of Schmitt's triumph, and by placing his scull a...
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Max Schmitt in a Single Scull (also known as The Champion Single Sculls or The Champion: Single Sculls) is an 1871 oil on canvas painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. It celebrates Eakins' childhood friend Max Schmitt's victory in a single scull competition on the Schuylkill River in the USA on October 5, 1870. The composition echoes the event by reproducing the conditions at the time and date of Schmitt's triumph, and by placing his scull at the exact point of the finish line. Eakins, who was also a keen rower, included himself in the painting as the sculler in the middle distance.
The painting is on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It measures 32½ x 46¼ inches.
"This painting, the first of 24 rowing paintings that Eakins completed over the course of four years, was the first time rowing was the focus of serious art. However, the stuffy Philadelphia critics didn’t take well to Eakins’ subject matter, even though rowing was, at the time, one of the most...
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