Bellows, George

Description

Autograph ID: 5745
Condition: Very good
Description: “(1882-1925) Ohio-born American realist painter, one of the most acclaimed American artists of his generation. He attended, but did not graduate from, Ohio State University 1901-04 and worked as a commercial illustrator while a student. He moved to New York and became a student of Robert Henri at the New York School of Art and associated with Henri’s “The Eight” and the “Ashcan School”, artists who advocated painting contemporary American society in all its forms. He first achieved notice in 1908 when he and other pupils of Henri organized an exhibition of mostly urban studies. Bellows taught at the Art Students League of New York in 1909 and his fame grew as he contributed to nationally recognized juried shows. His New York scenes depicted the crudity and chaos of working-class people and neighborhoods, and satirized the upper classes. Bellows’ series of paintings portraying amateur boxing matches, i.e., “Stag at Sharkey’s” (1907), were his signature contribution to art history, characterized by dark atmospheres through which the bright, roughly lain brushstrokes of the human figures vividly strike with a strong sense of motion and direction. The socially conscious Bellows also associated with a group of radical artists and activists, “The Lyrical Left”, who tended towards anarchism in their extreme advocacy of individual rights. He served on the editorial board of the socialist journal, “The Masses”, and contributed many drawings and prints from 1911. He dissented from his circle in his public support of US intervention in WW I. In 1918, he created a series of lithographs and paintings graphically depicting German atrocities during its invasion of Belgium. Later oils focused more on domestic life with his wife and daughters, a marked departure from the fluid muscularity of the early work. Bellows made significant contributions to lithography and illustrated numerous books in his later career, including several by H. G. Wells. He died of peritionitis after failing to tend to a ruptured appendix. His works are in major US art museums, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, the Whitney and Museum of Modern Art in New York, and The Columbus Museum of Art in his hometown. In 2012, the National Gallery of Art held the first comprehensive exhibit of Bellow’s prolific career in 3 decades; a major Bellows retrospective was held at the Royal Academy in London in 2013.

Frameable 1 1/2 x 4 1/4 signed slip with book reproduction of “Stag at Sharkey’s”. Uncommon autograph of a major American painter.”
Type: Signature