Sunday 1897 (Sunday, Going to Church)
George Bellows (1882-1925), Sunday 1897 (Sunday, Going to Church), lithograph, 1921, signed in pencil lower right [also initials in the plate]. Mason 73, only state, edition 54. In very good condition, printed on chine (with the slight creasing at margin edges, tiny nicks characteristic of this very thin paper). The full sheet with wide margins, 12 1/8 x 14 7/8, the sheet 14 x 17 7/8 inches.
A fine impression.
This is a view of Bellows as a teenager center, his father to his left saluting passersby, his mother at the right, and some others all crowded into the family buggy on the way to church; the time is 1897 and the place is Bellows’ native Columbus, Ohio. This is Bellows’ only lithographic portrait of his father, who died in 1913, one of only a few portrayals of his midwestern roots; another is Sixteen East Gay Street, a neighborhood scene, and he also created a humorous composition of fraternity life in Initiation in the Frat, both 1921 lithographs.
Detail: Bellows in the center, his father at the left.