Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, George Bellows studied at the New York School of Art, along with Edward Hopper and Rockwell Kent. He became one of the leading realist painters of his time and was also a masterful draftsman. His energetic drawings and lithographs—often rendered on a large scale, as in the examples shown here—suggest a spontaneous approach, though they also reveal his dedication to theoretical studies of proportion. This haunting yet spirited mixed-media drawing served as a study for the lithograph Dance in a Madhouse, created some 10 yeas later.
Date
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Charcoal, with stumping, pen and black ink, brown crayon, and touches of white chalk on ivory wove paper
Inscriptions
Signed lower right: "Geo Bellows"; inscribed lower left, in ink: "Dance at Insane Asylum"
Dimensions
48 × 63 cm (18 15/16 × 24 13/16 in.)
Credit Line
Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
Reference Number
1936.223
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Aline Kistler, “Bellows Drawings,” American Magazine of Art, 29:39 (1936), pp. 744-45 (ill.).
Jaines W. Lane, “Notes from New York,” Apollo 24, p. 294 (ill.).
Ann Brewer, “A First Showing of Some Bellows Drawings,” Art News 35 (1936), p. 16 (ill.).
Daniel Catton Rich, Catalogue of the Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection (Lakeside Press, 1938), cat. 102.
Peyton Boswell, Geroge Bellows (Crown, 1942), p. 24.
Daniel Catton Rich, “Bellows Revalued,” Magazine of Art 39:4 (April 1946), pp. 140 (ill.), 141.
I. Moskowitz (editor), Great Drawings of All Time 4 (Shorewood Press, 1962), no. 1017.
Charles H. Morgan, Geroge Bellows: Painter of America (Reynal, 1965), p. 309 (ill.).
Donald Braider, George Bellows and the Ashcan School of Painting (Doubleday, 1971), p. 37.
Paul Cummings, American Drawings: The Twentieth Century (Viking Press, 1976), p. 59 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter et al., “American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955,” (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2009), cat. 14.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Philadelphia Water Color Club, Fifth Annual Philadelphia Water Color Exhibition, Dec. 2-28, 1907, cat. 725.
New York, Frederick Keppel and Company, “Drawings by George W. Bellows,” Oct. 1936, checklist no. 14.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Drawings by George Wesley Bellows, lent by Mrs. Emma S. Bellows,” Dec. 22, 1936-Jan. 27, 1937, checklist no. 18.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, “Modern Drawings,” 1944, pp. 57 and 88 (ill.).
Washington D.C., Phillips Memorial Gallery, “Drawings and Lithographs by George Bellows,” 1945, cat. 10.
Art Institute of Chicago, “George Bellows: Paintings, Drawings and Prints,” Jan. 31-Mar. 10, 1946, cat. 63, p. 66 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, “Drawings: Old and New,” 1946, pp. 8-9, cat. 2, pl. XXXVI.
New York, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, “Exhibition of American Drawings,” Dec. 4-12, 1953, cat. 87.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, “George Bellows: A Retrospective Exhibition,” Jan. 19-Feb. 24, 1957, cat. 69, p. 100 (ill.).
Wilmington, Delaware Art Center, “The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Exhibition of Independent Artists in 1910,” Jan. 9-Feb. 21, 1960, cat. 4.
New York, National Academy of Design, “A Century and a Half of American Art,” Oct. 15-Nov. 30, 1975.
New York, The American Federation of Arts, “American Master Drawings and Watercolors: Works on Paper from Colonial Times to the Present,” Sept. 1976-Apr. 1977.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Modern in America: Works on Paper, 1900-1950s,” Jan. 30-May 3, 2010, no cat.
The artist, to Mrs. Emma Bellows, to at least 1936 [Chicago 1936 exh. cat.]. Sold by Frederick Keppel and Company, New York, to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1936.
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