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Eakins lived in Philadelphia. He graduated from Central High School (Philadelphia), studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and then in Europe 1866-1870, notably with Jean-Léon Gérôme in Paris, though he spent time in Spain as well, enamored with artists such as Diego Velazquez. He returned to the Pennsylvania Academy to teach in 1876, later becoming the director of the Academy in 1882. His teaching methods were controversial, most notably his interest in instructing his students in all aspects of the human figure, including the nude. Though there were tensions between him and the Academy's board of directors throughout his teaching career, he was ultimately fired in 1886 for removing the loincloth of a male model in a class where female students were present. The majority of Eakins's students liked his teaching methods and encouraged him to continue teaching at Philadelphia's Art Students League.

Eakins's first works upon his return from Europe included a large group of rowing scenes. The most famous of these is "The Champion Single Sculling" also known as "Max Schmitt in a Single Scull" (1871), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Eakins placed himself in the painting, in a scull behind Schmitt, his name inscribed on the boat. Typically, the work entailed critical observation of the painting's subject, as well as preparatory drawings of the figure and perspectival plans of the scull in the water.

In the late 1870s Eakins was introduced to the photographic motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge, and became interested in using the camera to study sequential movement. He performed his own motion studies, usually involving the nude figure, and even developed his own technique for capturing movement on film. In 1881 he obtained a camera, and after this point some paintings, such as "Mending the Net" (1881) and "Arcadia"(1883), are known to have been derived from Eakins' photographs.