ArtsWatch

What a strange, ghostly place is the Eakins Gallery at Thomas Jefferson University.
I stopped in this morning to see what’s left. Thomas Eakins’ portraits of Rands and Forbes are gone, of course. Jefferson has sold them off, leaving in their place only discolored outlines on the walls where they once hung. Like crime-scene chalk-lines for art.
The Gross Clinic’s departure has produced an even more ghastly souvenir – a life-sized digital reproduction of the masterpiece. A Jefferson spokeswoman says a faux-Forbes and faux-Rands are on the way.
Susan Eakins’ Portrait of a Soldier (the original) still graces the foyer outside the Eakins Gallery. So does Minerva, the 2d-century torso (with later additions) – both of which you can see, albeit through glass, without asking the guard to go through the ballet of calling for a replacement for himself while he walks over and unlocks the Eakins Gallery for you.
“There’s nothing to see in there,” he repeatedly tells me, though he eventually relents and lets me in.
What will Jefferson do with the Eakins Gallery (whose inhabitants are now called "Fakins" by some)?
Will the Susan Eakins go back to the French Benevolent Society, from which the work is on long-term loan? What of Minerva?
Jefferson has no plans to re-purpose the space, the spokeswoman said.
In the meantime, almost no one comes to visit the Eakins Gallery anymore, the guard told me. I tried to take some photos of this unique post-art scene, but he said no pictures were allowed.
No kidding.