George Wesley Bellows

George Wesley Bellows (1882-1925) was a prolific and accomplished leader among American painters who approached representation of the American scene realistically.

George Bellows was born in Columbus, Ohio, on Aug. 19, 1882. At Ohio State University (1901-1904) he distinguished himself as an athlete, but he determined that he wanted to be an artist and went to New York City in 1904 without graduating. For a time he supported himself as a professional athlete. He studied at the New York School of Art under Robert Henri, who became an influential and lifelong friend.

Bellow's early paintings are swift and vivid character studies, of somber tonality. His development was very rapid, and from 1906 on his works were accepted in national exhibitions. He was fascinated with the spectacle of the great city: its buildings, crowds, types, and rivers. Though he was denounced by conservative critics as one of the "apostles of ugliness, " his technical brilliance made him more acceptable than any of the other painters of similar impulse. He became an associate of the National Academy of Design at the age of 27, the youngest person ever so honored, and was elected a full academician 4 years later. His work is marked by exuberance, variety of subject matter, humor, and vitality, always depicted with gusto.

In 1907 Bellows produced the first of several paintings of prizefighters in action in the ring; these expressed violent action with power and seeming spontaneity. He married in 1910, rebuilt an old house on 19th Street, and started his teaching career at the Art Students League. He was a teacher of the Henri variety—bringing out the individuality of each student with excitement and imagination. He spent several summers in Maine, where he painted windswept landscapes and sea scenes. In the summer of 1912 Bellows visited California and New Mexico—his only excursion to the Far West. He never went to Europe.

Bellows was well represented in the important Armory Show of 1913. The new European movements exhibited there may have had an unsettling influence on him, as they did on many progressive American painters who discovered that their innovations had been in subject matter rather than in method or form. In 1916 Bellows turned to lithography (at this time seldom used by serious artists) because its immediacy attracted him, His nearly 200 lithographs deal with a wide variety of subjects—genre scenes, nudes, portraits, landscapes, literary illustrations, and humorous or satiric commentaries. He was deeply and emotionally affected by World War I and recorded his reactions in a series of powerful and painful prints that have been compared with those of Goya. In 1918 he became interested in Jay Hambidge's theory of dynamic symmetry, which provided a geometric system of composition for controlling the artist's work. Hambidge (and Bellows) believed it was followed by many of the great artists of antiquity.

Bellows taught at the Chicago Art Institute in 1919; his sojourn there was remembered as a whirlwind of enthusiasm and activity. His illustrations for novels by Don Byrne and H. G. Wells (1921-1923) are rich in action, characterization, and imagination. Bellows's finest late works are undoubtedly the portraits of his wife, two small daughters, mother, and aunt. Brilliantly painted, with solid structural design and probing characterization, they are among the triumphs of American realism, legitimate successors to the best works of Thomas Eakins. Less successful are some of the late landscapes, which tend to be mannered in style and lurid in color, and the large Crucifixion, his only religious work.

A neglected attack of appendicitis caused Bellows's death on Jan. 8, 1925, in New York.

Further Reading

Charles H. Morgan, George Bellows: Painter of America (1965), is an excellent study both as biography and criticism, though lacking in documentation. Bellows's widow, Emma S. Bellows, compiled two volumes of reproductions soon after his death: George Bellows: His Lithographs (1928) and The Paintings of George Bellows (1929). See also George W. Eggers, George Bellows (1931), and Peyton Boswell, Jr., George Bellows (1942). The catalogs of the retrospective exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum, New York (1925), the Whitney Museum, New York (1931), the Art Institute of Chicago (1946), and the National Gallery, Washington, D.C. (1957), contain valuable material.

Additional Sources

Morgan, Charles Hill, George Bellows, painter of America, Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Reprint Co., 1979. □

Bellows, George Wesley (1882–1925). American painter and lithographer, born in Columbus, Ohio. He studied at Ohio State University before moving in 1904 to New York, where he was a pupil of Robert Henri and became associated with the Ashcan School. An outstanding athlete in his youth and noted for his hearty, outgoing character, Bellows is best known for his boxing scenes. The most famous of them is A Stag at Sharkey's (Cleveland Museum of Art, 1907), remarkable for its vivid sense of movement and energetic, sketchy brushwork: he said ‘I don't know anything about boxing [a ‘stag’ was a boxing match held in a private club]; I'm just painting two men trying to kill each other'. Such works rapidly won him a reputation, and in 1909—aged 27— he became the youngest person ever elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design. He took a highly active part in the art life of his day and was one of the organizers of the Armory Show in 1913. After this, his work tended to become less concerned with movement, placing more emphasis on formal balance. He was a man of strong social conscience, and his work included scenes of the urban poor—of which the most famous is the crowded tenement scene Cliff Dwellers (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1913)—and a series of paintings and lithographs about First World War atrocities. He did not take up lithography until 1916, but in the nine remaining years of his life he produced almost 200 prints, and he is accorded a high place among modern American printmakers; his A Stag at Sharkey's (1917), in which he reworked the composition of his celebrated painting, has been described as ‘the most famous American print of this century’ ( Frances Carey and Antony Griffiths, American Prints 1879–1979, 1980). In the last five years of his life Bellows turned to landscapes and portraits and was considered one of the finest American portraitists of his day. His early death was caused by a ruptured appendix.

Bellows, George Wesley (b Columbus, Oh., 12 Aug. 1882; d New York, 8 Jan. 1925). American painter and lithographer, a leading pupil and follower of Robert Henri. An outstanding athlete in his youth and noted for his hearty, outgoing character, Bellows is best known for his boxing scenes. The most famous of them is A Stag at Sharkey's (1907, Cleveland Mus. of Art), remarkable for its vivid sense of movement and energetic, sketchy brushwork (a ‘stag’ was a boxing match held in a private club). Such works rapidly won him a reputation, and in 1909—aged 27—he became the youngest person ever elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design. He took a highly active part in the art life of his day and was one of the organizers of the Armory Show in 1913. After this, his work tended to become less concerned with movement, placing more emphasis on formal balance. He was a man of strong social conscience, and his work included scenes of the urban poor—of which the most famous is the crowded tenement scene Cliff Dwellers (1913, Los Angeles County Mus. of Art)—and a series of paintings and lithographs about First World War atrocities. He did not take up lithography until 1916, but in the nine remaining years of his life he produced almost 200 prints, and he is accorded a high place among modern American printmakers. In the last five years of his life Bellows turned to landscapes and portraits and was considered one of the finest American portraitists of his day. His early death was caused by a ruptured appendix. See also Ashcan School.

Bellows, George Wesley (1882–1925). American painter and lithographer, a leading pupil and follower of Robert Henri. An outstanding athlete in his youth and noted for his hearty, outgoing character, Bellows is best known for his boxing scenes. The most famous of them is A Stag at Sharkey's (1907, Cleveland Mus. of Art), remarkable for its vivid sense of movement and energetic, sketchy brushwork (a ‘stag’ was a boxing match held in a private club). Such works rapidly won him a reputation, and in 1909—aged 27—he became the youngest person ever elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design. He took a highly active part in the art life of his day and was one of the organizers of the Armory Show in 1913. After this, his work tended to become less concerned with movement, placing more emphasis on formal balance. He was a man of strong social conscience, and his work included scenes of the urban poor—of which the most famous is the crowded tenement scene Cliff Dwellers (1913, Los Angeles County Mus. of Art)—and a series of paintings and lithographs about First World War atrocities. He did not take up lithography until 1916, but in the nine remaining years of his life he produced almost 200 prints, and he is accorded a high place among modern American printmakers. In the last five years of his life Bellows turned to landscapes and portraits and was considered one of the finest American portraitists of his day. His early death was caused by a ruptured appendix. See also Ashcan School.

George Wesley Bellows 1882-1925, American painter, draftsman, and lithographer, b. Columbus, Ohio; son of an architect and builder. In his senior year he left Ohio State Univ. to study painting under Robert Henri in New York City. Bellows never visited Europe and seemed uninfluenced by the currents affecting his European contemporaries, but he actively supported independent art movements in New York City. His work has a direct, unselfconscious realism and has survived because of its humanity and sincere conviction. Forty-two Kids (Corcoran Gall., Washington, D.C.); Up the River (Metropolitan Mus.); Stag at Sharkey's (Mus. of Art, Cleveland); and a portrait of the artist's mother (Art Inst., Chicago) are characteristic paintings. Bellows revived lithography in the United States, and his prints are as important as his paintings. Billy Sunday, Dance in a Mad House, and Dempsey and Firpo are American classics. He was a noted teacher at the Art Students League, New York City.

Bibliography: See collection of his lithographs by E. S. Bellows (1927); studies by P. Boswell, Jr. (1942), C. H. Morgan (1965), and M. S. Young (1973).

Bellows, George Wesley (1882–1925) US painter and printmaker. Bellows was taught by Robert Henri and worked with the Ashcan school. He is best known for his paintings of boxing matches and street scenes such as the impressionistic Stag at Sharkey's (1907), which depicts an illegal boxing match. He helped to organize the Armory Show (1913).