It turns out the NAD wasn't crazy about Eakins' gift. Still, that can't be the whole explanation.

The soaring market value of Eakins' paintings must have tempted NAD and Columbus to sell. Yet Eakins' reputation sailed ever higher. Museums dumped Hudson River and trompe l'oeil paintings in the early 20th century, believing them to be irrelevant in the modern age. What makes this history particularly puzzling is that Eakins has never really been out of favor. (Edward, not Dennis.) When The Wrestlers became available, she recognized its capital importance and funded the purchase in 2006.

Meanwhile, LACMA patron Cecile Bartman was thinking of buying the museum a Hopper. In 1968 the NAD put The Wrestlers on the market, and in 1970, it was snapped up by the Columbus Museum of Art. The NAD has thereby assembled a considerable collection of American art, which it exhibits in a small museum in Manhattan. It was a 'diploma picture,' a gift required of newly elected academicians. (Unfortunately, it's not online.)Įakins painted The Wrestlers in 1899 and gave it to the National Academy of Design in 1902. LACMA curator Ilene Susan Fort now gives the back story in an unusually candid article, 'Wither the Wrestlers?' published in June's American Quarterly. MOMA doesn't deaccession Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Amazingly, it was once the greatest painting in two other museums' collections - both of which sold it to raise money. Thomas Eakins' The Wrestlers is the greatest American painting in LACMA's collection.

Columbus museum of art huntington