Susan Hannah Eakins (née Macdowell; September 21, 1851 – December 27, 1938) was an American painter and photographer.

[3][5] Unlike many, she was impressed by the controversial painting and she decided to study with him at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which she attended for six years.

Other female art students included Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux, Emily Sartain, and Alice Barber Stephens.

[2] As director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Eakins had made the decision to use female and male nude models for the life studies classes for students of both genders.

Even though he had support from some family and friends, it was a life-changing event that affected relationships in their lives and the Eakins' enthusiasm for life.

Susan Casteras, art historian, said of her Portrait of a Lady, made in 1880, that it showed her "firm handling and solid anatomical construction blended with generally dark tonalities.

"[10] After Thomas Eakin's death in 1916, she returned to painting, working nearly every day, adding considerably to her output.

The Eakins' ashes were buried in the Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia in an unmarked grave of her family's lot.

[12] In 1976, her work was included in the Nineteenth Century Women Artists exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

[13] In September and October 1977, an exhibition was held of the photographs and paintings of Susan, her sister Elizabeth and husband Thomas in Roanoke, Virginia at the North Cross School.