The Whitman Gallery


Early 1880s. Thomas Eakins. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California. This photo group is part of Eakins's "naked series" and is labeled simply "Old man, seven photographs." The model bears a striking resemblance to Whitman; for a plausible case that this may be a photo of Whitman "undisguised and naked," see Ed Folsom, "Walt Whitman's 'Calamus' Photographs" in Betsy Erkkila and Jay Grossman, Breaking Bounds: Whitman and American Cultural Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 193-219.
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