Portraits 

Editor: So, this is a pencil drawing by Thomas Eakins titled "Portraits". The sketch-like quality feels quite intimate. What stands out to you? Curator: Well, the immediate thing I see is the labor and material conditions embedded within the image. A pencil sketch isn’t simply a spontaneous expression; it involves specific material production. Where did the graphite come from? How was it processed into a drawing implement? We also see the labour embedded, a deliberate action which then can be linked to teaching and pedagogical approaches employed within academic art. Editor: That's a great point. I hadn't really thought about the production aspect of just a simple pencil. It appears to be a study piece of the female nude – how might it have functioned within the artistic system of its time? Curator: Precisely. We can speculate that it was produced for the artist’s workshop, a commodity traded between artists or patrons, potentially functioning within the exchange system of artistic training and creation. Think of the exploitation inherent to academic art training, bodies reduced to commodities. Who was being granted power to create these drawings, and who had the power to model? Editor: That's quite a radical way of looking at what seems, on the surface, to be a simple sketch! I definitely will look differently at the medium and model going forward! Curator: Indeed, analyzing art through the lens of material conditions opens up so many new paths for interpretation and allows us to move beyond simply looking and considering also what went into the labor of production!