George Bellows: An Artist in Action

George Wesley Bellows (1882-1925) painted American life in action. From prizefights and polo matches to children playing on the banks of a river, his subjects reflect his vivacious approach to the world around him. A major realist painter, his vigorous brushstrokes also compose landscapes of remote areas of natural beauty, scenes of bustling city streets, and intimate portraits of society figures, friends, and family. All dynamics of early twentieth-century America fill Bellows's canvases and prints.
Bellows studied at the New York School of Art under Robert Henri and became one of the leading artists of the Ashcan school. His technical brilliance and vibrant realism were celebrated from early in his career, and at the age of twenty-six he became one of the youngest artists ever to be elected to the National Academy of Design in New York. Bellows exhibited often, to great acclaim, and completed many significant commissions, achieving a powerfully impressive body of work before his sudden death in his early forties.
This book brings together the most important works of Bellows's short but prolific career, combining them with an in-depth biography of the artist. Photographs of family and friends, as well as of Bellows himself throughout his life, illuminate the text and complete this portrait of George Bellows, the artist and the man.

Mary Sayre Haverstock, former Director of the Ohio Artists Project, is an affiliate scholar at Oberlin College, Ohio. She has been an art critic for the Washington Post and contributing editor of Art in America.