George Bellows

American, 1882–1925

George Bellows was an American realist painter and printmaker known for his depictions of sport scenes and New York cityscapes. His hallmark painting Cliff Dwellers (1913) demonstrates Bellows’s control of color and perspective in depicting a bustling scene of Lower East Side tenements. “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance,” he once stated. Born on August 12, 1882 in Columbus, OH, Bellows studied at Ohio State University where he demonstrated both athletic and artistic talent. He left the university to study at the New York School of Art with painter Robert Henri. Under Henri’s influence, the artist became an early practitioner of the Ashcan School, alongside his close friend Edward Hopper, as well as the artists John Sloan and George Luks. Later, while teaching at the Art Students League of New York, he gained the support of wealthy patrons, whom he portrayed in an equal light to his working-class subjects. Notably, he was a dedicated printmaker and one of the first artists in America who utilized lithography for his own work. Tragically, the artist died at the age of 42 from appendicitis on January 8, 1925 in New York, NY at the height of his career. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery in London, among others.

Courtesy Artnet