Bellows, George

Bellows, George (Wesley)

(1882–1925) painter, lithographer; born in Columbus, Ohio. After studying at the University of Ohio and rejecting the possibility of a career in baseball, he came to New York to study painting with Robert Henri (1904). His life-long interest in athletics was reflected in many of his strongest paintings, such as Stag at Sharkey's (1907). He helped to organize the famous Armory Show in 1913 but he continued to work within the more conservative traditions of social realism and family portraiture. Moved by the horrors of World War I, he did a powerful series of anti-war paintings. In 1916 he took up lithography and book illustrations and is credited with reviving these as serious mediums for American artists.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.