George Bellows (1882-1925), Tennis (Tennis Tournament), lithograph, 1921, signed in pencil lower right, also signed and annotated by the printer Bolton Brown, imp lower left, and numbered 37. Reference: Mason 71, only state, from the edition of about 63. In very good condition, repaired tears in margins left and bottom not affecting image, with margins; 18 3/8 x 20 inches.

A superb impression, printed on a thin Japan paper.

A souvenir of the summers Bellows spent with his family at Middletown, Rhode Island. Emma Bellows can be seen wearing the black hat, sitting at the left.  Critics have speculated that the Rhode Island lithographs and paintings provided unusual subject matter for Bellows, who often focused on social or political issues in his work, but a broader view of Bellows indicates that aesthetic considerations were generally of primary concern to him. For example, in this lithograph the spectators and setting are given greater primacy than the tennis match itself.  Still,  Bellows depicts the spectators, including his wife, as an elegant and rather pretentious group, a perspective consistent with his social viewpoint.

Bellows created two major paintings related to this lithograph: Tennis Tournament (at Newport), in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Tennis at Newport in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. In addition there is at least one drawing nearly identical to Mason 71,  Tennis at Newport, at the Arkansas Arts Center; he also created a smaller, less ambitious lithograph on the same subject (The Tournament, Mason 72).

Detail

]]> http://harrisschrank.com/tennis.htm/feed 0 http://harrisschrank.com/the-black-hat-emma-in-a-black-hat.htm http://harrisschrank.com/the-black-hat-emma-in-a-black-hat.htm#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:09:05 +0000 Harris Schrank http://harrisschrank.com/?p=747 George Bellows (1882-1925), The Black Hat (Emma in a Black Hat), lithograph, 1921. Reference: Morse 113. From the edition of 55. Signed in pencil by the artist, and also inscribed in pencil by the printer “Bolton Brown imp”, lower margin. In good condition (tiny fox mark lower margin center, faintest pale time staining), on cream/tan thin Japan paper, with margins, 13 1/8 x 9 1/4, the sheet 14 1/4 x 10 3/8 inches. Provenance: Estate of Ralph Spencer; Allison Gallery (H.V. Allison and Company, 11 East 57th Street, New York, NY was a noted gallery [...]]]>

George Bellows (1882-1925), The Black Hat (Emma in a Black Hat), lithograph, 1921. Reference: Morse 113. From the edition of 55. Signed in pencil by the artist, and also inscribed in pencil by the printer “Bolton Brown imp”, lower margin. In good condition (tiny fox mark lower margin center, faintest pale time staining), on cream/tan thin Japan paper, with margins, 13 1/8 x 9 1/4, the sheet 14 1/4 x 10 3/8 inches.

Provenance: Estate of Ralph Spencer; Allison Gallery (H.V. Allison and Company, 11 East 57th Street, New York, NY was a noted gallery famed for handling Bellows prints. Their label is appended to this mat).

A fine atmospheric impression.

Bellows created a number of portraits of the women in his life wearing black hats, and several of Emma in various poses; she can also be seen wearing a black hat (surely this one) in the Tennis Tournament. Here, she has a plaintive expression, set off by the spectacular patterning of her garments. In our view, The Black Hat is Bellows’s finest portrait in lithography.

George Bellows ((1882-1925), Preliminaries (or, Preliminaries to the Big Bout), 1916, lithograph, signed, titled (in full: “Preliminaries to the Big Bout), and numbered (No. 26) in pencil, bottom margin. Reference: Mason 24, edition 67. In very good condition, with margins (some very slight thinning toward margin edges verso), the matrix pristine. 15 3/4 x 19 1/2, the sheet 19 3/4 x 23 1/4 inches. On a very thin Japan paper, archival mounting.

Provenance: The Greentree Foundation (Whitney Estate)

A superb, glowing impression.

Preliminaries has always been considered one of the Bellows Boxing Series prints, but it is of course quite different from the others: the fighting action is in the background, but the real action is the fashionable tuxedo and gown clad group in the foreground making their way into their box. The composition is sophisticated; and the atmosphere is palpable.

Bellows noted of this print: “Society attends a big fight at Madison Square Garden, New York.” Preliminaries is the only one of the Bellows fight lithographs in which women are present. At the center of the composition a woman (Emma Bellows?) turns toward us. Emma commented in her catalogue of the Bellows lithographs: “For the first time in New York prize-fight history, many fashionable women appeared in the audience.”

There is no major painting associated with Preliminaries, but there is a large related drawing in crayon and India ink at the Wiggin Collection in the Boston Public Library).

A fine clear black impression.

This is a study of Emma Bellows, George’s wife. At this time she was 37, the mother of two daughters. Emma Story and George Bellows met in 1905, in Montclair New Jersey. The setting for this portrait, done 16 years later, is probably their home at 146 East 19th Street, New York City.

This study is not a sedate formal portrait with all the details tightly drawn; rather, it’s a spirited rendering capturing the feeling of the moment – far more successful, in this observer’s view, than many of the more “finished” portraits.