Frank Fitzpatrick, an Inquirer sportswriter for more than 40 years, will examine three of Philadelphia’s great artist Thomas Eakins sports-themed paintings in the context of their times. Each provides a fascinating window into Philadelphia, its people and the games that were played and observed here. Whether it was portraying mustachioed baseball players practicing without gloves, boxers battling it out in front of some of the city’s earliest sportswriters or the well-muscled Max Schmitt propelling his single-oared scull along a familiar stretch of the Schuylkill, Eakins had a remarkable eye and a remarkable gift.

Thomas Eakins is unquestionably the greatest artist Philadelphia has produced. If anything, 109 years after his death, the North Philadelphia native’s reputation as one of America’s finest painters has grown. Among the many memorable portraits and works of profound realism this 19th- and early 20th-Century master produced are “The Gross Clinic” and “The Swimming Hole.”  But Eakins also provided future generations with astonishing visual insights into what were then the city’s most popular sports. He created richly detailed paintings that depicted baseball, boxing and rowing as they were contested in a city soon to become sports mad! 

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