In May 2025, 1996 President Donald S. Burke, MD, FASTMH, visited the ASTMH headquarters in Arlington, Va., to deliver a special donation: a painting of ASTMH founder Thomas Fenton. The Society was honored to accept the gift and asked Dr. Burke to share more information about the history of the painting as well as his journey to come into possession of it. (Photo: Dr. Burke with ASTMH CEO Jamie Bay Nishi.)
As a former president and archivist of the Society, and an amateur historian of infectious diseases, it was my honor to give the
2003 ASTMH Centennial Celebration Address in Philadelphia. My goal was to provide our membership with a credible history of the first 100 years of our illustrious Society. In preparing the lecture, I, of course, sought details of the life of our Society founder, Thomas Fenton, and was surprised to find that the
Delaware Art Museum had a near life-size portrait of Fenton on permanent display. The portrait had been painted by Thomas Eakins, one of the most important American artists.
When I went to view it in person, I immediately realized that it would be perfect for a display during our centennial meeting. However, I was unable to persuade the museum director to make a temporary loan of the original to the ASTMH. They did propose an alternative – that I commission a high-quality oil-on-canvas reproduction. To achieve museum-quality digital reproductions of oil paintings, a combination of high-resolution scanning, advanced printing technologies and specialized software is required. I found a company proficient at this kind of work, and the museum granted permission for the specialized scanning. The completed reproduction was mounted outside the main lecture hall during the Annual Meeting and, afterward, I took it home. The portrait also graces the cover of my Centennial Celebration Address, which I am sorry to say I never formally published in the
Journal; it exists only online on the
ASTMH website.
Here are a few more interesting details about Fenton and the portrait, as excerpted from page 5 of my Centennial Celebration Address:
The organizing founder and First President of the ASTM, Dr. Thomas Fenton, was born in Philadelphia on May 28, 1856. He attended the Episcopal Academy, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1877. He became a leading ophthalmologist with appointments at several Philadelphia hospitals. As a young man, Fenton was an avid rower, and in 1887 was a delegate from the Athletic Club of the Schuylkill Navy to a meeting in New York to form what is now the Amateur Athletic Union. Interested in civic affairs, he served for several years as a director of the Philadelphia public schools. A lifelong member of the College of Physicians, he served as Chairman of its Hall Committee for over 20 years. He had a large private practice. He is known to have published only a single paper, Hygiene in the Philadelphia Schools, but it is reported (by Dr B. Alex Randall, in his
Memoir of Thomas H. Fenton, M.D.) that he gave many unpublished presentations at meetings of the College. An accomplished musician, he was a member and president of the Orpheus Chorus. He was married to Lizzie Spear Remak, with whom he had two daughters and a son. In 1921, he was mugged and shot, the bullet lodging in his mastoid, but he recovered fully save for a loss of hearing. He died on February 23, 1929, at the age of 72.
Thomas Fenton was an active member of the Art Club, which he served for years as secretary and later President. It was probably through the Art Club that he met Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (1844 1916), widely considered the leading American portrait artist of the era. In 1905, Eakins painted a 60” x 30” formal oil on canvas portrait of Thomas Fenton that now hangs in the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington. It was donated to the museum as a Gift of the Friends of Art and other donors in 1963. The portrait depicts Fenton standing, arms crossed, in a formal long coat. The lower half of the painting is unfinished; according to Fenton’s daughter, Beatrice, he was too busy to continue the many sittings that Eakins’ painstaking method required. Beatrice was also the subject for an Eakins portrait: a painting of her entitled “The Coral Necklace,” on display at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio. Notes in the Delaware Art Museum files record that, “neither the art patron Thomas Fenton nor his art student daughter were sufficiently impressed with Eakins’ likenesses of them to secure them for their household. According to Beatrice Fenton, the family did not approve of her portrait. Moreover, her father considered his likeness unacceptable because it had never been completed.” Both paintings were retained by Eakins and later sold by his estate. Beatrice Fenton (1887-1983) went on to become an accomplished sculpturer; some of her bronze statues grace public venues in Philadelphia, including the Pan with Sundial at Penn’s Paley Library (east if the main entrance) and the Evelyn Taylor Price Sundial on Rittenhouse Square (SW corner of 18th and Walnut). Beatrice also sculpted a bust of her father, which unfortunately thus far, I have not been able to locate.
— Donald S. Burke, MD, FASTMH
The Society thanks Dr. Burke for this special donation and appreciates him helping us to remember our history.