1920s Art

Standing Female Nude Graphite on wove paper, c. 1915 Signed by the artist's daughter, Jean Bellows Booth (JBB) (see photo) Provenance: Estate of the artist H. V. Allison Galleries (#94 on partial label), agent for Bellows Trust Ronald Sloter, Columbus, OH, noted collector Columbus College of Art and Design Biography George Wesley Bellows grew up in Columbus, Ohio, the son of a devout and solidly Midwestern building contractor, and a mother who hoped that her son would become a Methodist Bishop. He always felt deeply ambivalent about his father, noting at the time of his death that, "He was a wonderfully fine man, yet being fifty-five when I appeared, his point of view, his character even, belonged to so remote a past that I look upon many of his ideas to this day with amazement and sorrow." Teased as a sissy by his classmates, George Bellows quickly learned to defend himself with his fists, and compensated for his gangling awkwardness by becoming an outstanding athlete, particularly in baseball. His love of drawing was kindled early since he was forbidden to play outside on Sundays but allowed to draw while his mother read aloud from the Bible. At Ohio State University, George Bellows proved a spirited extrovert, excelling in baseball as well as in the new sport of basketball, singing in theatricals, and producing drawings of Gibson-like girls for the university's magazine. Bellows's athletic prowess almost diverted him from a career in art, but in 1904 he decided to turn down a professional baseball contact and move to New York City to study painting. The sprawling, teaming city of New York was a revelation to him after the neat lawns and tidy homes of Columbus. There he quickly fell under the spell of the charismatic teacher Robert Henri, who introduced him to Shaw, Ibsen and socialism, and inspired him to shift from drawing Gibson Girls to painting the life of the streets. Bellows was still a relative newcomer to New York when Henri and his followers staged their famous exhibition of "The Eight" at the Macbeth Gallery, and consequently he was not included. But in spirit his work belongs with that display - perhaps someday Henri’s group will be rechristened "The Nine" to pay tribute to the fact that George Bellows was the painter whose work best expresses the goals of the group. In 1906 Bellows painted his first masterpiece, "The Cross-Eyed Boy." He followed with several other equally memorable likenesses of street urchins, and then expanded his vision with a series of masterful urban scenes that record such subjects as boys swimming...

Signed and titled by the artist Signed lower left by the printer, Bolton Brown Edition 42 Printed on fine chine paper, mounted to paper board, most probably by the artist’s first print dealer, Frederick Keppel & Company, in the mid 1920’s. This is consistent with other similar mounted examples in the estate of the artist. The Keppel firm was active from 1868 to 1941, when Harry V. Allison started his own gallery, H. V. Allison Gallery...

Medium: Lithograph on paper Signed and titled in pencil from the edition of 11

Signed by the artist and his printer Bolton Brown Edition: 72 Provenance: H.V. Allison & Co., Inc., New York (label) References And Exhibitions: This nostalgic scene o...

Signed by the artist and his printer Bolton Brown Edition: 53 Provenance: H.V. Allison & Co., Inc., New York (label) References: Lauris Ma...

Signed by the artist lower right "G.B." Preliminary drawing for the frontispiece illustration of The Wind Bloweth by Donn Byrne Exhibited: Gallery of Modern Art, 1966 A C...

Signed lower right by the artist's daughter Jean Bellows Booth (J.B.B.) Preliminary drawing for the lithograph "The Return to Life" from the series "Men Like Gods." Sister drawing in the Wiggin Collection, Boston Public Library. Provenance: Bellows Trust # --- H.V. Allison & Co, New York, NY R.H. Love Galleries, Chicago, IL Thomas French Fine Art Collection Arthur A. Anderson Exhibition: Greenville County Art Museum, George Bellows: Drawings (Greenville, SC: 1991). R.H. Love Galleries, George Bellows: Drawings (Chicago, IL, 1992). (label) On loan to the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paultz, NY, 2006-2008 Sketch of man...

Signed and titled by the artist and signed by his printer, Bolton Brown Edition: c. 50 References And Exhibitions: Note: Depicts the pre-bout introduction of Georges Charpentier, who was knocked out by Jack Dempsey...

Signed and titled in pencil by the artist and his printer Bolton Brown; Annotated "No. 50" Edition: 51 Provenance: Bellows Family Trust Reference: La...

Signed and titled in pencil by the artist, and signed by his printer, Bolton Brown http://www.thomasfrenchfineart.com/inventory/view/3/2291

A preliminary for Bellows' "Tennis at Newport" oil painting. Edition: c. 63 Signed in pencil by the artist and by his printer, Bolton Brown. Titled in p...