A small reproduction of Thomas Eakins’s Salutat (1898, Addison Gallery of American Art) stands on a stack of framed paintings in Stuempfig’s homage to legendary Philadelphian painter and professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). Salutat shows the prizefighter Billy Smith saluting his all-male audience at the Arena, located across from PAFA at Broad and Cherry Streets. The young, shirtless model in Stuempfig’s composition channels Eakins’s attention to male physical culture, as well as his watershed contribution to figure painting in the city.
Stuempfig was born in Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood. He initially studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, then transferred to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) to study painting. His instructors there included Henry McCarter, Daniel Garber, and Francis Speight. In 1948, Stuempfig himself joined PAFA’s faculty. He exhibited regularly, and his work can be found in the collections of PAFA, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, among others.
