Thomas Pollock Anshutz

Thomas Pollock Anshutz painted working Americans and, later, soft, bright figure studies. His best known picture, The Ironworkers’ Noontime (1880), shows factory men on their lunch break and is one of the first American paintings to show industrial labour honestly. It is in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

He was born in Newport, Kentucky, studied in New York and then at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins, whom he later succeeded as a teacher. He taught at the Academy for thirty years, and his students included Robert Henri, John Sloan, William Glackens, George Luks, Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler.

A Rose and A Flowered Gown show his later portraits of women in light, airy colour. Look at how he treats fabric and light.