George Bellows's spirited and virile paintings of New York in the early decades of the twentieth century celebrated the city's bigness and bolness. Although these works clearly challenged the conservative practices of the National Academy and linked Bellows with the anti-academic art of Robert Henri and the Eight, they were highly popular, even with arch-conservatives. In this book Marianne Doezema explores why it was that Bellows's paintings--despite being considered coarse in technique and subject matter--were acclaimed by critics and patrons, by conservatives, progressives, and radicals alike. Doezema focuses on three of Bellows's principal urban themes: the excavation for Pennsylvania Station, prizefights, and tenement life on the Lower East Side. Drawing on journals and periodicals of the period, she discusses how the prominent, often newsworthy motifs painted by Bellows evoked particular associations and meanings for his contemporaries. Arguing that the implicit message of these paintings was distinctly unrevolutionary, she shows that the excavation paintings celebrated industrialization and urbanization, the boxing pictures presented the sport as brutal and its fans as bloodthirsty, and the depictions of the Lower East Side conformed to a moralistic, middle-class view of poverty. In many of Bellows's subject pictures of this era, says Doezema, the artist approached issues of changing moral and social values in a way that not only seemed congenial to many members of his audience but also verified their attitudes and preconceptions about urban life in America.

Catalog of an exhibition held at the National Gallery, London, Mar. 3-May 30, 2011.

This richly illustrated and insightful publication will be the First truly comprehensive exhibition catalogue on the work of George Bellows (1182-1925), with ten thematic essays by leading art and social historians that will provide a rigorous analysis of Bellows' life and career. The catalogue will document the range of Bellow's artistic achievements in all mediums, reconsidering his standing in relationship to artists such as Hopper, Picasso and Manet in order to better understand his unique place in the history of both American and Western art.0Exhibition: National Gallery of Art, Washington (10.6.2012-8.10.2012), The Royal Academy of Arts, London (16.3.2013-9.6.2013).

This essay collection, by scholars from both the United States and Europe, carefully examines the artwork of one of the most important 20th-century American painters and printmakers, George Bellows. It builds on the Columbus Museum of Art’s 2013 exhibition, George Bellows and the American Experience, and the National Gallery of Art’s 2012 exhibition, George Bellows. The volume offers innovative research that explores his oeuvre from multiple viewpoints. The essays challenge widely held perceptions of Bellows, such as his Americanness, hyper-masculinity, patronage, response to the World War I, and his relationship to fellow artist Edward Hopper. This is an essential collection for any serious study on Bellows’ work.

An engaging look at early twentieth-century American printmaking, which frequently focused on the crowded, chaotic, and gritty modern city. In the first half of the twentieth century, a group of American artists influenced by the painter and teacher Robert Henri aimed to reject the pretenses of academic fine art and polite society. Embracing the democratic inclusiveness of the Progressive movement, these artists turned to making prints, which were relatively inexpensive to produce and easy to distribute. For their subject matter, the artists mined the bustling activity and stark realities of the urban centers in which they lived and worked. Their prints feature sublime towering skyscrapers and stifling city streets, jazzy dance halls and bleak tenement interiors—intimate and anonymous everyday scenes that addressed modern life in America. True Grit examines a rich selection of prints by well-known figures like George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Joseph Pennell, and John Sloan as well as lesser-known artists such as Ida Abelman, Peggy Bacon, Miguel Covarrubias, and Mabel Dwight. Written by three scholars of printmaking and American art, the essays present nuanced discussions of gender, class, literature, and politics, contextualizing the prints in the rapidly changing milieu of the first decades of twentieth-century America.

100 greatest works by Bellows, Sloan, and the other painters of the Ashcan School.