Miss Alice Kurtz

Miss Alice Kurtz was painted by Eakins in 1903 and is now in the Harvard Art Museums. The portrait is not connected to a prominent public figure, suggesting that Eakins was pursuing the subject for personal rather than social reasons — something that often happened in his portrait practice. His portraits of young women have a particular quality: he refused to sentimentalize youth or femininity, rendering each sitter with the same unflinching search for character that he applied to aging men and prominent public figures. The Harvard Art Museums' acquisition confirms the institutional reach of his reputation beyond Philadelphia.

Eakins's portraits of young women often use light falling from above and slightly to one side, creating soft modelling on the face while maintaining tonal complexity. The handling is no more gentle than in his male portraits — the same search for the underlying three-dimensional structure of the skull beneath the skin.