In January 1914, George Bellows wrote to a friend, “There has been none of my favorite snow. I must always paint the snow at least once a year.” Soon after, on February 13, a blizzard hit New York City, inspiring the artist to paint Love of Winter. Bellows is usually associated with the artists of the so-called Ashcan School, a group of urban realists active in the early twentieth century who communicated their enthusiasm for scenes of contemporary city life using thick, animated brushwork. Here Bellows enjoyed the challenge of representing snow, employing a palette knife to create varying degrees of texture in the built-up pigment.
Renowned for his rough-and-tumble images of boxing matches, the artist also excelled at landscapes and city views. Love of Winter depicts an energetic group of skaters and onlookers in what scholars believe to be a public park, although the scene could be a composite of both urban and rural sites. The crowd, comprising a range of ages and social classes, reflects the diversity of those that frequented the recreational places that still characterize New York. The painting also reveals the artist’s recent exploration of new theories that suggested color combinations based on musical notation. He employed a series of intensely saturated warm shades of red, orange, and yellow throughout Love of Winter, offsetting them with cool blue, green, and lavender tones. Broad, slashing brushstrokes convey movement, wind, and speed, enhancing the vigor of the composition.
“Acquisitions,” Friends of American Art Fifth Year Book, 1914–1915 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1915), 22, 34 (ill.).
Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago 9 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1915), 25 (ill.).
“Catalogue of Artists and Acquisitions,” Friends of American Art Sixth Year Book, 1916–1918 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1918), 9.
“Friends of American Art Announcement” (Art Institute of Chicago, 1919), ill.
The Art Institute of Chicago Handbook of Paintings and Drawings (Art Institute of Chicago, 1920), 39.
A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1932), 142.
John Shapley, ed., “George Wesley Bellows—Painter and Graver,” Index of Twentieth Century Artists (1934), 90.
Peyton Boswell, Jr., George Bellows (Crown Publishers, 1942), 63 (ill.).
Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), 22.
“The Beauty of America in Great American Art,” Country Beautiful (1965), 118–19 (ill.).
Charles H. Morgan, George Bellows, Painter of America (New York, Reynal, 1965), 177, 195.
Donald Braider, George Bellows and the Ashcan School of Painting (Doubleday, 1971), 92.
Judith A. Barter et al., American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1998), 342–344, no. 186.
Judith A. Barter et al., The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2011), no. 83.
Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the Collection, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2017) p. 92.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings by George Bellows, Dec 10, 1914–Jan 3, 1915, cat. 19.
Milwaukee Art Institute, An Exhibition of Forty Paintings Presented to the Art Institute of Chicago by the Friends of American Art, Mar 1–29, 1925, cat. 4.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, Jun 1–Nov 1, 1933, cat. 431.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, Jun 1–Nov 1, 1934, cat. 497.
Art Institute of Chicago, George Bellows Paintings, Drawings and Prints, Jan 23–Mar 10, 1946, cat. 23.
Milwaukee–Downer College, Wisconsin, A Century of Landscape Painting by American Artists, 1851–1951, Feb 13–Mar 23, 1951, cat. no. 14.
Illinois, Wheaton College, Exhibition, Apr 3–Jun 12, 1951, no cat.
Vancouver Art Gallery, Two Hundred Years of American Painting, Mar 8–Apr 3, 1955, pl. 41.
Normal, Illinois State University Student Union Building, One Hundred Years of Painting, 1857–1957, Mar 17–Apr 5, 1957, cat. 3.
West Palm Beach, Florida, Norton Museum of Art, George Bellows: Love of Winter, Dec 6, 1997–Feb 8, 1998; traveled to Newark Museum, Mar 7–May 31, 1998; Columbus Museum of Art, Jul 10–Sep 13, 1998.
Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, Jun 10–Oct 8, 2012; traveled to Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nov 13, 2012–Feb 18, 2013; London, Royal Academy of Arts, Mar 16–Jun 9, 2013.
The artist, 1914; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1914.
