George Bellows’s spirited and virile paintings of New York in the early decades of the twentieth century celebrated the city’s bigness and bolness. Although these works clearly challenged the conservative practices of the National Academy and linked Bellows with the anti-academic art of Robert Henri and the Eight, they were highly popular, even with arch-conservatives. In this book Marianne Doezema explores why it was that Bellows’s paintings―despite being considered coarse in technique and subject matter―were acclaimed by critics and patrons, by conservatives, progressives, and radicals alike.
Doezema focuses on three of Bellows’s principal urban themes: the excavation for Pennsylvania Station, prizefights, and tenement life on the Lower East Side. Drawing on journals and periodicals of the period, she discusses how the prominent, often newsworthy motifs painted by Bellows evoked particular associations and meanings for his contemporaries. Arguing that the implicit message of these paintings was distinctly unrevolutionary, she shows that the excavation paintings celebrated industrialization and urbanization, the boxing pictures presented the sport as brutal and its fans as bloodthirsty, and the depictions of the Lower East Side conformed to a moralistic, middle-class view of poverty. In many of Bellows’s subject pictures of this era, says Doezema, the artist approached issues of changing moral and social values in a way that not only seemed congenial to many members of his audience but also verified their attitudes and preconceptions about urban life in America.

George Bellows and Urban America

Arts & Photography

Doezema, Marianne

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

American Realism and the Industrial Age (Themes in Art Book)

Cleveland Museum of Art

This exhibition interpreted Georgia's history through such objects as furniture, silver, textiles, paintings, iron work, ceramics, maps, and Native-American artifacts. More than 150 objects created by Georgia craftsmen before the Civil War composed the most comprehensive collection of Georgia-made objects ever assembled. The publication includes descriptions of the development of culture in Georgia, details of Georgia's native-American and decorative arts, and an evaluation of commemorative art in mid-nineteenth-century Georgia. The catalogue of works in the exhibition illustrates the relationship between historical events in Georgia and the quality of arts that emerged from the state during those periods of time.

Georgia's Legacy: History Charted Through the Arts

Smith, Jane Webb

Univ of Georgia Georgia Museum

Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925

The images that are often associated with the Ashcan school of artists are the more sombre depictions of working-class life in early twentieth-century New York. This subject matter is not, however, representative of the entire spectrum of Ashcan art. Featuring some of the Ashcan school's most vibrant and outstanding works, this book demonstrates unequivocally the zeal with which these artists and their circle embraced the world of play enjoyed by all levels of society. Spirited scenes of diverse leisure activities in cafés, bars and parks, at the theatre, on the beach, at sporting events and in the countryside provide a refreshing look at this important artistic movement.
Offers a fresh exploration of a major American artistic movement Features works by the Ashcan artists and their circle, including George Bellows (see opposite), William Glackens, Robert Henri, Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, George Luks, Guy Pène du Bois, Maurice Prendergast, Everett Shinn and John Sloan, among others Complemented by lively essays on the world of leisure experienced and depicted by the Ashcan school.

Leeds, Valerie Ann

DiGirolamo, Vincent

Tottis, James

Smeaton, Suzanne

Merrell Publishers

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Books by Doezema, Marianne