George Wesley Bellows was a printmaker and painter associated with the American Realist movement, the Ashcan School, and a group of artists known as The Eight. As a versatile artist, Bellows created a wide array of paintings, ranging from seascapes to portraits. However, his most famous production is arguably his gritty depictions of New York's urban life, as well as his impressively energic boxing scenes.
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George Wesley Bellows
George Wesley Bellows was a printmaker and painter associated with the American Realist movement, the Ashcan School, and a group of artists known as The Eight. As a versatile artist, Bellows created a wide array of paintings, ranging from seascapes to portraits. However, his most famous production is arguably his gritty depictions of New York's urban life, as well as his impressively energic boxing scenes.
An Early Life Between Art and Sports
George Wesley Bellows was born in August 1882 in Columbus, Ohio. His passion for art manifested at a very young age, and he began drawing early in life. His artistic proficiency was noticed early as well, as his elementary-school teacher would even ask him to decorate the class chalkboard.
However, young Bellows was also very fond of sports, which almost steered him away from becoming an artist, initially believing he had a better chance of becoming an athlete. Despite not a typical athletic build, Bellows proved himself highly proficient in basketball and baseball, even becoming a semipro player.
During his high school senior year, Bellows declined an offer from a baseball scout, opting to enter the Ohio State University, with the intention to focus on his artistic studies. During this period, the artist continued to play baseball and basketball while also creating illustrations for the student yearbook. By 1903, he made an oil painting that would win an award at the state fair.
Bellows was encouraged to become a professional athlete and continued to receive magazine commissions throughout his early life. Despite his popularity and countless opportunities, Bellows desired to achieve success as a painter, so he left Ohio in 1904, just before his graduation, to move to New York City and study art. There, Bellows' artistic development would effectively flourish.
Becoming an Artist
In New York, Bellows promptly enrolled at the New York School of Art. There, the young artist studied under the distinguished painter Robert Henri, who became one of the most pivotal influences on Bellows' artistic career and a lifelong friend.
He also mingled with many aspiring artists, such as Edward Keefe, Rockwell Kent, Edward Hopper, and his future wife, Emma Louise Story. Upon Henri's departure from the New York School of Art, Bellows followed his teacher to his new studio.
Under Henri, young Bellows' artworks began to focus more on New York's everyday life scenes, a vital turning point in his career. Soon, Bellows started to create the paintings that would render his fame; crude depictions of the streets of the metropolis, its neighborhoods, and inhabitants.
By 1908, Bellows' new gritty artworks would gather public attention when he participated in an exhibition alongside many of Henri's pupils, comprised mostly of urban studies. Although considered rudimentary by many critics, these artworks were also considered a fresh and bold approach to Henri's production.
Urban Scenes and the Ashcan School
Between 1907 and 1915, the artist concluded a series of paintings depicting New York City under snowfall. An excellent example of this production is Pennsylvania Station Excavation. Bellows' early passion for sports found its way into his artistic output. By 1909, the artist began to create pictures depicting boxing matches in New York, which were still illegal at the time.
These paintings are often considered Bellows' most notable and essential artistic contributions, as well as one of the most iconic American paintings. Bellows' energic brushstrokes and stark tonal contrast convey an intense sense of speed and power, making the exchanging hits almost palpable to the viewer. These elements are epitomized in his striking Stag at Sharkeys.
Through Henri, Bellows became associated with a group of artists known as The Eight, later named the Ashcan School, which Henri himself was one of its leading figures. The movement was also composed of artists such as William Glackens, George Luks, Everett Shinn, and Theresa Bernstein.
He also got acquainted with John Sloan, who became a crucial influence on Bellows' early career. They often took strolls together through the streets of New York, searching for subjects that would later be translated onto the canvas.
The Ashcan School was an American art movement of the late 19th and early 20th century that became quite relevant for their unidealized and often gritty representations of New York's everyday life, especially its lower classes. The association with the group secured Bellows a place at the important Exhibition of Independent Artists in 1910, also organized by Robert Henri.
Mature Career
The early recognition through these exhibitions would soon grant Bellows a teaching post at the Arts Students League, which enabled the artist the financial stability to marry Emma and begin a family. Emma and their two daughters would become an artistic inspiration for Bellows and often appeared in his artworks, such as in Emma and Her Children.
Throughout his career, Bellows would also produce illustrations for magazines, such as the distinguished Harper's Magazine, and many books by H.G. Wells. Politically and socially conscious, the artist became associated with a group of left-leaning artists known as the Lyrical Left, avid advocates of individual rights. By 1911, Bellows took a position on the editorial board of a socialist publication known as The Masses, creating several prints and drawings.
Lithography, atop of being the means to create his illustrations, was also pivotal for his artistic output. Bellows has played a vital role in developing the acceptance of the medium as a full-fledged art form. His Between Rounds, First Stone, is an excellent example of the artist's lithographic production.
During his later life, Bellows' subjects shifted towards his domestic life, exploring landscapes and seascapes. Although he remained a Realist painter, Bellows' style became increasingly inspired by Denman Ross and Hardesty Maratta's studies regarding color theory; and the dynamic symmetry compositional system by Hardesty Maratta. These studies are beautifully exemplified in his Summer Fantasy, executed in 1924, one year before his death.
In the same year, Bellows also completed another of his famous boxing paintings, Dempsey and Firpo, which arguably became Bellows' most renowned masterpiece. The artist was enamored with the sea throughout his life, painting over 250 seascapes, like the beautiful Beating Out to Sea. Bellows became a teacher at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1919.
Sadly, George Wesley Bellows died in New York City on January 8, 1925, of peritonitis, at only 42 years old. Bellows' style was still rapidly developing at the time of his passing; one could only wonder what his art could have been.
George Wesley Bellows' Death and Legacy
George Bellows immortalized his name as one of the most acclaimed American artists of his generation, playing an essential role in American art's growth as a whole. Bellows' unceremoniously raw and unidealized depictions of urban life made him one of the key artists of the Ashcan School.
Also highly acclaimed for his renderings of boxing matches, Bellows' fluid and energic brushstrokes greatly enhanced his compositions' intensity. The artist was also pivotal in ascending lithography as an art form.
Quotes
"I found myself in my first art school under the direction of Robert Henri... My life began at this point."
"The artist is the person who makes life more interesting or beautiful, more understandable or mysterious, or probably, in the best sense, more wonderful."
"Try everything that can be done. Be deliberate. Be spontaneous. Be thoughtful and painstaking. Be abandoned and Impulsive. Learn your possibilities."
- George Wesley Bellows
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