Wisconsin Public Television University Place  James Pearson The Lithographs of George Bellows  September 12, 2012 UP765    cc >> Welcome to University Place Presents. I'm Norman Gilliland. His paintings and lithographs have been described variously as violent, bold, or tangy. One thing's for certain, the art of George Bellows evokes the image of working class America as it was a hundred years ago. Guiding us through the art of George Bellows is the curator of the Wright Museum of Beloit College, James F Pearson. Welcome to University Place Presents. >> How you doing, Norman? >> This is a person that I venture to say a lot of us haven't heard of. We may have seen some of those more famous images of his, but where does George Bellows fit in the history of American art? >> I would say he's most known for the movements of the ashcan artists. >> Not a very promising name for a group of artists. >> No. 

And one that was used derogatorily and placed on them decades after most of their works were completed. The ashcan artists, according to the name, were painting, drawing, and doing prints of life as they saw it. Tenement buildings, the rise and fall of culture in America, the falling Victorian ideals, and the rising working class, especially in the city streets around New York City. And within that school, I would say Bellows probably ranks extremely high. >> And how does he come into this school? From whence does he come to become a member of this ashcan school? >> He saw the prints and the paintings of Robert Henri, who was the teacher, I'd say, of the ashcan school. Henri actually recruited what's known as the eights. People including Luks and John Sloan, they were all stationed in Philadelphia to begin with, and they sought out the streets of New York to find these compositional elements that they found most intriguing: the every day life of New Yorkers, of the working class. >> Bellows actually came from the Midwest. >> He did, originally born. He met up with Henri and was invited out to New York City to kind of taste the seen. 

And Bellows fell in with revolutionaries, and he really found his place there. So from the Midwest to the brothels of New York City. >> We're talking about when? Roughly the first decade of the 20th century? >> Approximately, yeah. >> And what is his medium as he arrives in New York? >> Like most of the ashcan artists, Bellows was an illustrator for newspapers. This was before major newspapers used photographs. They actually had illustrators do drawings and captions to accompany the stories they printed. So Bellows always drew, and from his drawings he would do prints, lithographs specifically. He was also a painter. So he had his finger in a lot of different mediums. Never sculpture, I don't believe. 

>> Now, a promising young artist would almost always get invitations, though, to paint portraits. Did he resist that? >> Bellows did portraits. >> He did do portraits? >> Mm-hm. One interesting part of this turn of the ashcan school was who was getting these portraits done. Prior to this era, portraiture was normally reserved for the subject who could afford them. >> Sure. >> And it was, prior to the invention of the camera, it was a life-like depiction of the person that, in the case of kings and princes, sometimes set on the thorn in their place. Bellows, following Henri's lead, ended up doing portraits mainly of working class people. So instead of the Duchess of York getting her portrait done, it was the local paperboy. When somebody wouldn't show up for a portrait, Henri had a habit of going out into the street and just finding someone to sit for him. 

>> Well, we have kind of an overview here, and image of this exhibit that is associated with Beloit College, and what is this showing us? It's showing us pretty much the overall variety of these lithographs in this particular collection? >> This particular collection, first, is from a former Beloit College president, Victor Ferrall, and his wife Linda Smith. They have over 50 lithographs of Bellows. I asked for about 40 of them for the show, and he delivered, and then I culled it down to about 19 or so. What we're looking at is an installation view of the gallery exhibit going on at the Wright Museum of Art at Beloit College. The name George Bellows and his culture and his birth and death dates are fairly centered in the room. The left of those would be prints from his war series, and to the right would be streets imprints, which I'm sure that we'll get to in this program. >> Yes because like many artists he would go through phases of interest. I suppose also phases of technique too. How would we describe his earliest things once he gets to New York? >> I would say almost sketchy. It still had this kind of illustrative journalism, and you'll see that running throughout his prints, throughout his short-lived career. 

But in the beginnings, especially, it was fairly sketchy. The lithograph was gaining popularity, and Bellows really just jumped on it. He started to profess the greatness of the lithograph and how manageable it is as a medium. >> What is the process for lithography? >> So, for hundreds of years any time a word was printed it was either etched into a plate of sorts. At first, it was actually scraped in by hand repeatedly by artists such as Durer. Eventually, they figured out ways to make it a little easier on themselves by covering the plate with what amounts to asphalt, and then scratching away at the surface to reveal the plate, dropping the whole thing into acid which would then eat away just those scratches. So when the plate is then inked and wiped away, ink remains in the etchings, the markings that the acid left and can then be printed. >> Mass produced. >> And printed and printed and printed, right. Now, the plate isn't as forgiving because of the process of the acid and the actual process of scraping off what amounts to asphalt on top of the plates. 

Mistakes were often made, sometimes ruining an entire picture. Lithography came in on a stone, and instead of removing portions of the stone, the surface was built up with what amounts to a wax crayon, almost like a crayon, that would repel the ink when it was placed on the stone for the print. So, instead of putting ink into the crevices left by acid etched into a plate, which is, in a sense, your drawing translates into a black line. With the stone lithography, because it repels the ink, what you draw translates into white space. So it's kind of hard to wrap your mind around, but once you understand it, you really get it. They were drawing in negative. >> Yes. >> In negative form and then doing prints. The stone lent itself to reproductions much more easily than an actual plate. >> And what would have been the market then for Bellows work early on in New York? >> There were a few galleries that really loved the ashcan work. 

There were many, many galleries in the established academy that did not love the ashcan work. They really had to fight for it. >> What was their problem with it? Was it the subject matter? >> It was the subject matter. Absolutely. >> Not worthy of artistic preservation. >> As it hadn't been throughout history, but as we both know that's historicized thinking and this was the new. Life was changing at an unprecedented pace. Developments in technology, specifically photography. Also, the rise of the moving pictures was also something that influenced a lot of the ashcan artists. But they did have the grounding in journalism, so they were able to capture a scene, one filled with all kinds of motion and gestures and cues, and capture it in a single moment. 

>> That makes me think, when you talk about this action and multiple figures, of this scene of the madhouse that we have. What's going on in this image? >> This was a study, in essence. And though it in no way was Bellows being derogatory towards the system or the people involved in this picture. It was actually done based on his own visit to a mental asylum in Rhode Island, I believe. I think that this is a great example, looking beyond the subject matter, of a kind of symmetrical dynamism. If you look at the figures and how they're situated, the way the arms are outstretched, the way one are would be bent and one arm would be stretched, the way the weight is shifted to a single leg where the movement that the two main dancers implies. This was something that Bellows  sought out. So I would say, in this case, it wasn't so much like a journalistic record of the conditions of a mental asylum as much as it was a way for him to attempt to, in a sense, practice, if not hone, this dynamism in composing his figures. It's something we'll see throughout the rest of his career. >> Well, he seems to have this going back and forth between the literal representative and something more symbolic or even classical as we get into some of the nude figures. 

That would probably not be so realistic a situation in New York in 1910 or 1920, but it does tap into a very long artistic tradition. >> Absolutely and that is one thing that is really important to remember about Bellows is that he knew his history. He knew his contemporaries as well as his predecessors in prints and in paint. Henri actually really pushed that into his students. He would occasionally take them on trips overseas which is another interesting aspect. A lot of the work that we see from this time period in America was heavily influenced from the European movements. >> Sure. >> And it wasn't until the early 20th century that these European paintings, drawings, and prints actually made it to places like New York for these artists to look at, to copy, to emulate. Bellows was one of them, and when he did nudes, and as we'll see, they're very, they harken back to an age when the nude was done for very significant reasons. To try to, I guess they were looking for the purity. 

It was still a matter of modeling and creating the figure based on the ideal figure. So all the way back, say, to the Greek or to the Romans. >> Sure, this one is called The Sawdust Trail. What is that referring to? >> The Sawdust Trail is actually the path down the center of this. This is a depiction of what amounts to, let's see, it's a lot like a tent revival, like a Baptist tent revival. The main figure in this is Billy Sunday, the historical figure. >> Oh, a famous radio evangelist. >> Yes. And it's funny, when you mention Billy Sunday everybody says, oh, I know him. When you mention Bellows and everyone's like, who? So Bellows and a journalist were dispatched to Philadelphia for this event. 

It was Philadelphia for Christ, Christ for Philadelphia. And this was Bellows' account of the event. Now, the sawdust trail was the aisle that led up to this stage, and Sunday asked all of the new converts to walk the sawdust trail, and he would shake everyone's hand. If you look closely at this one, in the center just to the left in the foreground is a fairly tall balding young man. And that is a self-portrait of Bellows. >> Well, I wondered about that, whether he would put himself in his own work. >> A couple of times. >> There is at least one image of him where he has this rather rye expression on his face. He seems like the kind of person who would be up to that kind of trick occasionally. >> Yes. 

Bellows was interesting when he did his own portrait. A lot of what he was trying to capture, this kind of emotional realism came out in self-portraits. I don't believe he was that bald, but I'm not sure. He always depicted himself that way. >> It's almost a little bit of a self-caricature going there. >> Yes. >> Well, if he did Billy Sunday, that means he must have done real famous people with or without their permission or cooperation? >> Yes. Both in journalistic endeavors, those things he was actually being paid for, the commissions, but a lot of the real, the famous people of this day were attractive to Bellows mostly because of the spectacle or the spectacular in a sense. So Billy Sunday definitely had a spectacle in his tent revivals. That's what Bellows and a lot of the ashcan artists were attracted to, the busyness, the things you're not seeing on the street every day. 

Another great example are his boxing. >> Well, yes. He's, actually if known for anything above anything else, it would be for boxing. >> That's correct, yes. >> And we have, let's see, this Jack Dempsey knocking out his contender Firpo by name. >> That's correct. >> And he seemed to like, Bellows seemed to like, which makes sense I suppose, the dramatic knock out. This was not like a timed knock out. This was like out of the ring kind of knock out we have in progress, which I assume is historically what happened. >> I wouldn't take Bellows' word for it, but I'm pretty sure. 

It was probably similar, but Bellows still had this leftover journalistic quality where he wanted to slightly exaggerate to get the scene. But, again, it takes time to make a drawing, so it could be his memory of the moment and what he wanted the moment to become. Firpo, Dempsey, John L Sullivan, they were all main boxers of the day, and Bellows went to the matches. And he really loved it. And in these works, again, you can see that kind of symmetrical dynamism that he's going for. One bent elbow, one straight arm, weight on a single leg. It's similar to a pose from the classical tradition, harkening all the way, again, back to the Greeks and the Romans. But he felt it was probably the best way to convey either motion or the implication of motion as if this person is getting ready to pounce. >> And big on contrast too between dark and light. >> Absolutely. 

And lithographs really lends to that. Again, in the technical process, any time the wax crayon is used it will come out as the whitest white of the picture, and any time nothing is touched on the stone it will come out ink black. So they use that, Bellows especially, to his advantages. >> If we think of the 19-teens and into the early '20s as a time when mass media were certainly taking off, newspapers were rulers of the day when it came to getting information, and pictures, whether photographs or lithographs, could push the bounds of taste in terms of today's thinking. There literally would be photographs in newspapers of murder victims, of even executions on rare occasions where the camera would be sneaked into the electric chair chamber or something like that, notable murder cases that were actually photographed in the execution phase. Now, I gather Bellows got into that at least once? >> At least once. Probably more often than he should have. He did release a print that's in our show, The Electrocution, Second State. Again, I think he's trying to rely on the spectacle of the matter because the execution of a human is quite a spectacular event with no connotations positive or negative. It's definitely something to see. 

And at this point in American history there was a sort of thirst for that spectacle. >> Yes, that kind of sensationalism. >> After generations of Victorian ideals, and that's finally beginning to fall as the old guard falls. And what rose up was this kind of sensationalism. Things were moving much more quickly. And I think that The Electrocution is probably a good talking point for the technical aspects of stone lithography as well. >> Second state meaning? >> Meaning there was a first and possibly more. So, there was a first state and the stone in stone lithography, it lends itself well to amending a photo to reworking, I'm sorry, a picture. To reworking it. So, he did the first states, he ran an edition of prints, was probably looking at them and decided that it wasn't exactly what he was looking for. 

So he went back and worked the stone again, came up with a second state. That way he could distinguish it from the first state. He called it a second state, and I believe the image was cropped a little more. It's a little darker because he worked it a little less. There was some washing of the waxes off and then rebuilding them up. And in it, he's kind of playing with the results, and I do know that The Electrocution actually went into a third state. So after the second one, he reworked the stone. I believe the third state was simply to crop in closer on the condemned man. >> And it's a very dark picture as it is, so you almost need to crop in to the subject to concentrate on it more. How many copies would he typically run off of any given lithograph? >> Well, it varied on almost every one of them. 

A lot of the times it was based on popularity of the image. There are a few cases of editions being run after his death, which isn't normally something that would occur. However, they were all slated for the printer. I suppose the printer was just a bit busy up until that point. These images were actually signed by his daughters, his surviving members of his family to give them credence. >> So with the lithographic process, assuming that the artist didn't break the original stone, there's always the potential for doing a new series. >> There is, which could lead to problems. However, in the 20th century as these mass-marketed materials became more collectable, as more and more editions were made, there's a lot of cases where artists would scar the surface of the stone, or the plates because a lot were still doing plates, and then run an edition. And it was basically to prove that the stone had been destroyed or the plate had been destroyed. >> So this is where we get this term limited edition. 

>> Yes, exactly. And it when then raise the value of every existing edition before that. >> Presumably so. >> There's a lot of woodblocks, especially from Asia, Japan is pretty guilty of this, of just continuing to print and print and print almost unlimited editions. >> I supposed real counterfeit, could you get away with actually printing from an already printed version of the lithograph? >> I spoke with somebody and I mentioned how, no names, I mentioned how I loved this image and though I don't have the money for it, I would love to have it. And he looked me in the eye and he said I could probably get you one because we have the stone here. It would not be official at all. And this is where the role of experts, Franklin Riehlman for instance, when someone wants to know if their Bellows is a fake, Franklin Riehlman is the guy to go to. So his catalogue raisonne has been published, all of his editions have basically been checked. There's a couple out there that are missing just singular images which are assumed to be destroyed. 

But if there is suddenly an influx of George Bellows prints on the market, you'll know that somebody is doing something they shouldn't. >> And this is one that has a very classical or traditional look to it. It takes me back to the Renaissance maybe in terms of the placement of the figures, but it has a less than glamorous or glorious title. >> The Drunk. Right. This one was actually commissioned for Good Housekeeping Magazine, nonetheless. >> For Good Housekeeping. >> They were doing an article on the atrocities of alcohol. So Bellows created this image, and I'm not going to say he did it for the paycheck solely, but I know that artists, working artists, are working. So wherever they can get their name out. 

And I'm sure that he had no qualms about taking the commission. And they did give him artistic license, so this is the composition the came up with. He needed it extremely light and clear because it would be printed in the magazine. >> Right. >> But you'll also see pretty specific Bellows style indicated in the print. One arm outstretched. One arm bent. The weight on one shoulder. The poise of this dynamism. >> It's certainly reminiscent of one of those crucifixion pictures. 

>> Yes. Or you can almost see him as a boxer as well, the giant man in the middle. Yes. >> Uh-huh. Interesting. >> This was reworked a couple of times. I believe in the reworking before it went to print. No, I'm sorry, the first edition that went to print, the woman was completely covered, the woman on the left. And the reworking of it, the children were pushed a little further into the background and the woman's chest was bare. I'm not sure the reasons for that or not. 

>> Probably not the version they used in the magazine. >> No, sir. This was the second version, yes. >> Out there, if you found one of the copies of the magazine, it would have a George Bellows print in it. >> Absolutely. And that was typical for a lot of the ashcan artists. Not only working for footprint media, both papers and magazines and fliers and leaflets. >> Now, there's also a tradition of the combat artist. Did Bellows get into that? >> No, he was not actually ever in combat. Bellows did an entire series on war, and it was based on well-documented accounts of the atrocities taking place mostly between Germany and Belgium. 

>> The notorious rape of Belgium, which ostensibly was neutral, and Germans came in anyway. >> Absolutely. >> And it created a tremendous refugee problem. >> Mm-hmm. And a lot of his war series were based on the pillaging of the Belgian culture as well as the physical deterioration of Belgian people based on German influence. I do have a quote from Bellows on his war series, if I could just read it. He says, "In presenting these pictures of the tragedies of war, I wish to disclaim any intention of attacking a race or people." He was trying to get himself uninvolved. "Guilt is not personal, not racial. Against that guilty clique and all its tools, who organized and let loose upon innocence every diabolical device and insane instinct, my hatred goes forth, together with my profound reverence for the victims." So, keeping those words in mind when you look at Bellows war pictures, or the entire series of his war pictures, he's really trying to have the viewer of his works empathize with the victims, with the tragedies. >> That does seem to be a strong theme in his work is the victim, the person getting knocked down or, in some cases, murdered. 

>> Yes, yes. It's true. And I don't want to get into psychology because I don't know too much of it, but it is true that Bellows depicted the underdog a lot. People that were kind of left behind or passed up. The loser of the fight, in essence. It wasn't a glorification of losers at all, but it was another side of life that hadn't normally been seen up to this point. >> Well, that makes sense, I suppose. If you're going to be covering street life, triumph isn't necessarily a big part of it. Again, you're going to see the person who's down and out, somehow got the short end of the stick. >> Absolutely. 

There's one other thing about his war series. He did get a lot of criticism for not actually being in combat or doing combat artwork, to which he replied something to the effect of well I didn't realize that da Vinci had a seat at the last supper. There's a bit of artistic influence. >> And always will be unless you're talking about the most literal of representations, in which case by the time Bellows comes along, why not just use a camera? >> Exactly, exactly. The world really did change after the invention of the camera, and not the camera obscura which was actually used by artists throughout history. >> Yes, yes. >> But the immediate camera, it put artists out of work across the globe. It really did. >> And a lot of them, of course, had to redirect the meaning of what they were doing. >> Right, right. 

It did free them from your hyper-realistic representation. They were then able to influence the pictures, to put in their own artistic interpretation. >> What's the story behind the murder of Edith Cavell? >> Now, if you're not familiar with the history of Edith Cavell, she was a nurse, I believe she was German, and she was treating wounded from the German and Belgium excursions. Edith Cavell actually treated all patients regardless of their culture. She treated German soldiers. She treated the Belgian victims. For that, she was tried for treason. >> By who? >> By the German people. She was arrested and tried for treason and sentenced to death. There was, across the western world from the United States through Europe, there was condemnation of the trial, of the death sentence, but the German people went through with it anyway. 

This, I believe, is a good instance of George Bellows using his artistic license to frame the picture, to set the scene. I don't believe that she ever actually descended a staircase to go to the firing squad. But here we have Edith Cavell in white, almost angelic, completely clean in a sense, descending the staircase, very prideful. Her head is high knowing that she's walking to her own death  for doing the things that she believed in her heart were correct. >> It would have been like A Tale of Two Cities. But it's a theme that certainly wears well. A more prosaic title for this. >> The Cigarette, yes. This is a pretty brutal image. It's actually really hard to see, to look at. 

I was told from multiple people while I was curating the show that they'd rather not see it in the show because it is just so brutal. The depiction is based on an actual report of the treatment of Belgian citizens by German soldiers including mutilating the bodies. And here we have, you see the juxtaposition of the very light victim and the darkened victimizer, in a sense. And the victimizer would be just taking a break, having a cigarette after such a brutal attack. >> A terrible understatement in that title. >> Absolutely. If anything, if you see these pictures and you get that same feeling that it was an atrocity, that's really what Bellows was going for. That would make his picture a success if one individual were to view it and feel absolute empathy for the victim and make it hard to look at. And that's what I try to explain when I was told that it probably shouldn't be in the show because I can barely look at it. >> Well, it's powerful. 

>> Exactly. Exactly. >> It certainly is as powerful now, almost as powerful at least, as it would have been in World War I. >> Agreed. >> And Bellows would also, though, occasionally have these wistful thoughts about better times. >> Yes, yes. And a lot of the times, those wistful thoughts, when he decided to compose them in prints and in paintings, he would harken back to the classical era. He would show a lot of the women, men as well, occasionally nude but very tastefully rendered, almost as if they had the same properties as the models of the Renaissance or even prior. >> Right. >> One piece in particular is Hail to Peace, Christmas. 

This was completed maybe months after the armistice was announced and World War I was over. And he was just so enamored. This work, I believe he did this work as his family Christmas card in that year, 1914. >> 1918? >> 1918. So he did this piece, he did a whole edition to send out to his close friends and extended family. >> As we get back into, then, peacetime, what kind of subjects does Bellows turn his attention to? >> He goes back to the streets. So, I think one thing I should point out is that these are lithographs, and early in his career, Bellows' lithographs and his paintings had completely different tones. He reserved his more personal beliefs and his attempts to bring the empathy towards victims, his interests in motion and in technology and in the fast pace of the early 20th century, for prints and drawings, lithographs. His paintings were mostly landscapes and seascapes, and it was more about trying to create a painterly style. >> Oh, yes. 

Partly that and I suppose partly is he used different muscles, physically speaking. >> I also wouldn't be surprised if it was to help cater to established galleries and the academy. >> You've got to be practical. >> That's right. If you wanted his work in the gallery, you had to do what they wanted to see in a sense. >> And what's he showing us in Splinter Beach? >> This is a fantastic example of the working class. This is, Splinter Beach is one of the few places at this time where the public in New York City could actually cool off during the summer, during the really hot days. Nowadays, you can go to Long Island and go to one of the many beaches there. But at this time, Long Island was basically owned by the robber barons of the 20th century. All the beaches were privates and locked and gated. 

So, the working class, having no vehicles to travel anywhere else, needed a place to cool off. Again, that's prior to the invention of air conditioning. So, mostly they would end up in the rivers, the Hudson, the East River, and it was crowded. It was very crowded. So Bellows would go, and this one specifically is one of many compositions that are extremely similar. He would go multiple times and get ideas and arrange figures. He would then go back to his studio and turn a drawing or a sketch into a lithograph either by tracing the lines or doing some artistic mending to the lines. A lot of this wasn't just for the sake of showing the working class conditions of the city. It wasn't just for showing the juxtaposition between the high class and the low class. >> They were studies. 

>> They were studies, yes. So you'll see a lot of sometimes nude figures or nearly nude figures at the beach which wasn't necessarily the case. >> No, I suspect not in 1918-1920. >> Not very often. >> And so if we were to progress to a picture like The Waterfront, I would suspect that we would see, again, that's a fairly working class title. >> Yeah, very similar. Very similar image but it was a very similar circumstance. Almost every day in the city at this point people were going to the rivers to cool off. And this one is faint but you can see the Brooklyn Bridge underneath. So if you can imagine either the pristine beach on Long Island somewhere or swimming under the Brooklyn Bridge, given your choice. 

>> It's interesting this concept in class distinction that Bellows points out. He was, by this point, was he not, moving in some pretty high social circles? >> He was attempting to. He never actually made it himself, but he did rub elbows with a lot of people. There were collectors in his lifetime that sought his work out. A lot of these higher class individuals weren't necessarily the old wealth. They weren't the old aristocracy. They were the up and coming wealth. They were art collectors, mainly, gallery owners, and a few commissions from wealthier people. >> So, if we have a period in Bellows' life we would call the war series as we get into these post-war pictures, is there a label that applies to them? >> I really wouldn't want to label it. It's not that it's not diverse, too diverse to label, but I think that what we're looking at now post-war is his style coming to its maturity. 

So it's pretty much just the Bellows series. This is the kind of thing that he had worked on throughout his entire life to be able to place these figures in a very specific way to add his own artistic influence to kind of motivate the viewer to understand the same emotion that he was trying to convey. I actually have another quote from Bellows that is right along these lines. He says, "The test of my success with the picture is whether I've been able to make other people feel from the picture what I felt from the reality. Even so abstract as a landscape, it's still an expression of feeling. My pictures are all expressions of emotional realism whether they are portraits, character studies, or street scenes, prize fights, landscapes or any mortal thing." So post-war, Bellows was really attempting to record life not as a photographer, not with a strict realism but this emotional realism where you can look at this, understand based on the stances of the people, the glances, what's going on in the scene and get from that the feeling as if you were there on the bustling street. >> A more subjective view, emotionally, you might say charged than if you just had a picture. >> Absolutely. >> A realistic picture. >> Not enough of the poor kids in the corner, I'll add four or five more because I really want to show you that there were poor people on the street. 

>> That's the artist's prerogative. >> Yes. >> To load the picture as he or she sees fit to accomplish the intended effect. >> Right. >> The difference between photography and other. >> Right. After the invention of the camera. >> That's right. Where are you going to go? Subjectivism would be one place to go. What's he showing us in the street? >> I think this is a fine example of this kind of class warfare, of the fall of the Victorian ideals exemplified through the two very Victorian ladies in the bottom left quadrant of the picture walking through what amounts to an alleyway of tenement buildings and the working class around them. 

So Bellows was, in a sense, recording this wealth disparity that was going on. Capitalism was in full steam, and with technology, capitalists got a lot of money. So, if I could, and this isn't necessarily my personal feelings, as a curator you can take yourself out and just say, well, the themes were already there, I just had to prune everything that wasn't that theme. >> Right, right. >> Bellows occupied Wall Street a hundred years ago. He really did. He was trying to record this disparity of wealth, this almost culture war brewing, the advance of technology. He was protesting the war. He was very much a man of his time. >> On the other hand, he could, again, settle back into something that would be a little more, say, relaxing for want of a better word at hand. 

Something like Artists' Evening. >> Artists' Evening is a fine example of relaxing. And the ashcan all visited many of the bars in the city life. And this is where Bellows met a lot of the revolutionaries of his time. It's where they discussed things like socialism as it came up. The pros, the cons of it, where the country was going, and, of course, their own artistic endeavors. This piece, specifically, was at Petitpas, which was a French restaurant and boarding house in New York City. The main figure with the white beard is Yeats' father, I think. A poet in his own right. But he was a resident at the boardinghouse, and he was a big draw for all of the ashcan artists. 

Speaking to Yeats' grandfather is Robert Henri. >> The teacher of Bellows. >> Exactly. And I didn't mention this before but Bellows' style actually surpassed Henri's, eventually. >> I was going to ask about what Henri thought about his student. >> He was the star student. He was. And after, I'd say, about five to six years working with Henri, Henri stepped back and realized I am good but you are much better. >> So, in a picture, a lithograph such as the Artists' Evening, do you think Bellows actually was there sketching people or did he tend to work totally from memory? >> I believe it was a nice mixture of both. I do know that he sketched almost constantly. 

I think it was leftover from his days in journalism. He recorded a picture as quickly as he could with as little line as he possibly could. I think it was as a way of retaining it in his memory so that he could then rework it later or send it off to the presses as is. I know that Bellows sought models and subjects everywhere he went, including Henri. There's many portraits of Henri done by his students and a corresponding of the portrait of the student done by Henri. So they sat across from each other and did portraits. This was one way of doing it. A lot of the times at Petitpas or McSorley's Bar Bellows might sit in the corner and just record the life that was going on around him. So something like Artists' Evening could very well be a composition based on numerous different drawings and sketches that he had done up to that point but then composed all together for a print. >> And did he, we've already mentioned that he occasionally would do a self-portrait, slip it in here or there, but did he do other members of his family, and what kind of family did he have? >> Bellows, although he died very young, he did have a wife and he had two daughters. 

And they were constantly drawn whether they liked it or not. I don't think that they ever had a problem sitting for their father to do their portraits, but this was, to harken back to his sense of emotional realism, instead of us opening up, say, an old photo book, well let's just say we open up an old photo book and we see a picture. It kind of brings us back to that moment, not necessarily smelling the grass and remembering the laughter we heard when that photo was taken, but with Bellows I think it was a little more. He actually was able to remember. The certain elements of the picture brought out portions of his memory. He could remember his daughters much more at a specific age. I don't know if you have children but I do, and I almost don't remember my daughter at six months. She's two now and I can't think of anything else. So if I had, like Bellows, sat down with my daughter at six months and recorded the small wisps of her hair, then at two years when she has hair past her shoulders, I could look at my print and remember the actual small wisp of her hair. I think this is what Bellows was looking for when he did a lot of his family portraits. 

>> What do you see as the legacy of George Bellows? Was he a thing unto himself or did he influence others to come? >> He definitely influenced others to come. Look at us now talking about Bellows a hundred years later. He was probably one of the leading members of the ashcan. It's debatable but his style exemplified the ashcan. Between Bellows and Luks you can get an understanding of the realism, of the new realism of the early 20th century. Bellows to this day still influences based in technical aspects of his lithography, of his print-making processes. And I believe it's the first time in two decades there is a solo exhibit of George Bellows' paintings going on at the National Gallery of Art in DC. This show will eventually move to the Met in New York and over to France. It will be in Paris as well. And this hasn't occurred since 1990, I believe. 

But I know that the show is doing extremely well. Selling out all the books. Bellows' catalogue raisonne is going again. So he's coming back into vogue. It only took a hundred years, but now we're looking at his prints again with new eyes. >> You have to be patient. >> Yes. >> James F. Pearson, thank you for joining me and guiding us through the life and art of George Bellows. >> I do what I can. >> It's been a pleasure. 

James F. Pearson is the curator of the Wright Museum at Beloit College. I'm Norman Gilliland. Thanks for joining us today for University Place Presents.