What Is It Telling Us? PONDERING ONE of GEORGE BELLOWS’ FINAL PAINTINGS by Kevin Salatino

What Is It Telling Us? PONDERING ONE OF GEORGE BELLOWS’ FINAL PAINTINGS By Kevin Salatino

When the great American painter George Bellows died prematurely in 1925 at the age of 42, he had been in the midst of a gradual but conscious shift in style that was as intriguing as it was eccentric. The writer Sherwood Anderson observed, with a note of pathos in his voice, that “the late paintings keep telling you things. They are telling you that Mr. George Bellows died too young. They are telling you that he was after something, he was always after it.”

19 Far left: Detail of George Bellows’ Summer Fantasy (1924). 17 Center: Kevin Salatino and Huntington paintings conservator Christina O’Connell assess the condition of the painting prior to its installation in the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art in July. Right: Bellows, in an undated photograph, died in 1925, less than a year after completing the painting. Portrait is courtesy of Peter A. Juley & Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum, J0001254. In a dazzling career spanning only 19 years, Bellows recent acquisition of one of the most significant of modern life, with a brushstroke as rapid as an symmetry,” a system of mathematically and geo- leapt, effortlessly, from achievement to achievement, his final works: the beautiful and elegiac Summer uppercut and a palette as raw as a bloody nose. metrically conceived ideal proportions based on his work characterized by daring technique and Fantasy of 1924 (see page 21), a picture of enormous That early subject matter—of boxers, street the study of ancient Greek architecture espoused subject matter, incessant experimentation, breath- ambition and, ironically, optimism, and so unlike urchins, crowded tenements, the teeming life of by the theorist and painter Jay Hambidge. So im- Earlier in his career, Bellows was taking facility, and herculean productivity. the gritty boxing and urban scenes of his better- New York City in a period of explosive growth— portant to Bellows was dynamic symmetry as a known for his grittier subject The positive popular and critical reception known youth. In fact, the painting seems produced derived from the influence of Bellows’ famous structuring principle that even his summer house matter. Opposite, bottom: Excavation at Night, 1908, oil on of his late paintings—and of the mysterious by the hand of a different artist entirely. Those teacher, Robert Henri, as did his dark, restrained in Woodstock, N.Y., was designed according to canvas, Crystal Bridges Museum “something” in them that Bellows was “after”—is earlier works—Stag at Sharkey’s (1909) (below, palette, the legacy of Henri’s worship of the French its precepts. of American Art, Bentonville, Ark. Opposite, top: Preliminaries to the particularly noteworthy in light of The Huntington’s center) being the most famous—shocked their Realist-cum-Impressionist painter Édouard Manet, The elaborate pantomime of Summer Fantasy Big Bout, 1916, lithograph, The inaugural audiences not so much by their brutal an adulation he passed on to his pupil. Like Manet’s is as rich in symbolism as a Renaissance allegory Huntington Library, Art Collecions, and Botanical Gardens. Center: and explicit imagery (“I just wanted to paint two work, Bellows’ imagery expanded to include more (think, for example, of Botticelli’s Primavera, or Stag at Sharkey’s, 1909, litho- men trying to kill each other,” in the artist’s words) resolutely pastoral scenes, particularly of the pastimes Allegory of Spring, with which there are clear and graph, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical as by the startling visual vocabulary Bellows had of the leisured classes (primarily polo and tennis), probably intentional parallels). The painting does Gardens. developed to express the dynamism and chaos of accompanied by an equal enlarging of his chromatic not depict an actual or, frankly, even an imagined Bellows is less widely known as range—a brighter, more exuberant palette inspired event, but rather a visionary one (see sidebar). It a portraitist. Laura, 1915, oil on by the works of Seurat and Gauguin, and the late functions as a metaphor for, or an idealization of, canvas, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical This work contrasts vividly with paintings of Renoir. the perfect summer’s day—late afternoon in the Gardens. any number of Bellows’ earlier, By 1918, Bellows—who had been interested throughout his career in color and compositional gritty urban scenes. theories—had fallen under the spell of “dynamic

18 19 magical hour before sunset—thus imbuing it with Pennsylvania Station’s foundation is as much a nostalgia and longing. On a deeper level, the work metaphor for the industrial metropolis’ “satanic may be interpreted as an allegory of life, from birth mills” and their dehumanizing effect as Summer (the pram and nanny closest to us), through youth Fantasy’s bucolic setting is for a lost and longed- and adulthood (the central, striding couple and for Arcadia. What is worth noting, however, is the their attendants), to death, as implied by the dark- essential something that connects all of Bellows’ silhouetted boat, a classic reference to the afterlife— paintings: the desire to elevate his subject matter Echoes of two great works can be found in Bellows’ Summer all of this underscored by the lateness of day, whose from the merely illustrative to the metaphorical. Fantasy (opposite). Top: Sandro lengthening shadows suggest fleeting time. The Indeed, Summer Fantasy seems to stand as a kind Botticelli (Italian, 1445–1510), Primavera, or Allegory of Spring, bridle path at the painting’s core sets the dominant of summation of the artist’s career and themes (as ca. 1482, © Summerfield Press/ theme: the race of life. if he were aware that death was a beat away), akin CORBIS. Bottom: Georges Seurat (French, 1859–1891), A Sunday This work contrasts vividly with any number in spirit and achievement to Georges Seurat’s on La Grande Jatte, 1884–86, oil of Bellows’ earlier, gritty urban scenes, Excavation magisterial Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884–86) on canvas, Art Institute of Chicago, Helen Birch Bartlett at Night (1908) (pg. 18, bottom left), for example, (lower left), a painting Bellows almost certainly knew, Memorial Collection, 1926.224. where the massive, gaping excavation pit for sharing with it an air of achievement and finality. Summer Fantasy becomes the second painting by Bellows to enter The Huntington’s collections, the first being a portrait of his half sister Laura (1915), acquired in 1983 (pg. 19). Though Laura is a brilliant example of the artist’s skills as a portraitist, Bellows is better known for his landscapes (with or without figures) and was arguably the greatest practitioner of that genre in 20th-century American art. Summer Fantasy thus fills what had been—in the absence of a Bellows landscape—a serious and longstanding

The elaborate pantomime of

Summer Fantasy is as rich in BELLOWS’ FANTASY George Bellows (1882–1925), Summer Fantasy, 1924, oil on canvas, The Huntington symbolism as a Renaissance Compositionally, Summer Fantasy is divided into a series of horizontal bands, like geological strata, Library, Art Collections, and allegory. granted a sense of movement by the zigzagging placement of figures in the painting’s carefully composed Botanical Gardens. landscape. In the right foreground, a nanny dressed in white pushes a baby carriage; spatially closest to the viewer, she functions as what art historians call a “repoussoir” device, pulling us visually into the gap. The Huntington also holds a significant number picture. In the left foreground, on a plane a bit further back, a large knot of figures gathers, accompanied of the artist’s prints, which Bellows believed to be by an imposing dog and another baby carriage. In center middle-ground, a couple (to whose central equal in status to his paintings. He was a highly position we may attach some importance) strides forward up a gentle hill, the woman enhaloed by accomplished and prolific printmaker in a golden a translucent white parasol (or is it a hat?), her right hand extended in a kind of benediction—a Lady age of graphic art, and many of his most iconic Bountiful of sorts. lithographs can be found at The Huntington, including Stag at Sharkey’s and Preliminaries to the In even deeper space (at the painting’s horizontal center), several equestrians, looking as stately as a Big Bout (1916) (pg. 18–19). royal procession, canter along a bridle path—two white-horsed riders flanked by two dark. Finally, in 20 With the recent acquisition of two large and the painting’s background, recreational sailboats ply a turquoise river, one boat dramatically silhouetted 21 ambitious paintings by Bellows’ contemporaries, against the fiery reflected light of an apocalyptic sun breaking through El Greco–inspired clouds. George Luks and Reginald Marsh, the context in which Summer Fantasy may be understood at The The actors in this bucolic narrative wear vaguely historic costumes (the women more so than the men, Huntington has expanded even further. Luks’ whose clothing is more generically modern), including the anachronistic presence of parasols and long, dark and powerful painting of the underbelly of flowing dresses. And while saturated shades of green, blue, purple, orange, and yellow dominate the land- the coal mining industry and its dependence on scape, the defining color of the central characters is white, and leisure the principal activity. Significantly, child labor, The Breaker Boys (ca. 1925) (pg. 22, it is we, the viewers, to whom the painting’s main actors address themselves, as if the scene were un- top left), made at virtually the same moment as folding on a stage in a theater in which we are the audience. Even the nanny in the foreground, though Summer Fantasy, provides a startling contrast— her face is only suggested, appears to look out of the picture and directly at us. (continued on pg. 22) –KS CONSIGNMENTS NOW TWO MASSIVE BLUE AND INQUIRIES WHITE BALUSTER VASES +1 (323) 436 5552 INVITED FOR AUCTIONS Kangxi period [email protected] Bellows’ painting joins IN ALL CATEGORIES $100,000 - $200,000 other works in the newly Fine Asian Works of Art, June 24 expanded Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art, including The Breaker Boys, ca. 1925, oil on canvas, by George Luks (1867–1933); The Locomotive, 1935, tempera on concrete, by Reginald Marsh (1898–1954); and The Long Leg, ca. 1930, oil on canvas, by Edward Hopper (1882–1967).

With the recent acquisition of two large and ambitious paintings by Bellows’ contemporaries, George Luks and Reginald Marsh, the context in which Summer Fantasy may be understood at The Huntington has expanded even further.

were considered more-or-less friendly rivals. It is sobering to reflect that Hopper, who achieved success much later in life than Bellows, lived until 1967. While Hopper’s work was characterized throughout his career by slow, nearly invisible change, Bellows’ was defined by constant volatility and experimentation. Who knows what directions his art might have taken had he lived, like Hopper, another 40 years? aesthetic, historical, and cultural—to the latter, We have hints, of course, of those directions, of reflecting the complexities of the American scene which Summer Fantasy is one of the most fascinating. in the pre-Depression twenties. Marsh’s monumental Beautiful and compelling in its mastery of light Locomotive (lower left), a work from a decade later and color, its profundity of symbolic meaning, its than Summer Fantasy, and produced at the height insistent strangeness of mood, and its powerful of the Depression, promotes instead a vision of referencing of the past while keeping a firm eye American progress and industry diametrically on the future, Summer Fantasy is a masterpiece 22 opposed to the sentiment of The Breaker Boys, of the artist’s late career—a consummation and which is unsurprising, given Locomotive’s origins condensation of an all-too-brief life of remarkable as a government commission. though truncated ambition and achievement. The timeless Summer Fantasy stands outside (or falls somewhere between) both of these works, Kevin Salatino is the Hannah and Russel Kully having more in common with Edward Hopper’s Director of the Art Collections at The Huntington. idealizing The Long Leg (ca. 1930) (top right), another dream of a perfect summer’s day. Hopper and Bellows were the same age and in the same class at the New York School of Art, where they