- Venue
- Royal Academy of Arts
- Location
★★★ out of ★★★★
A powerhouse of a retrospective that sheds new light on ‘that boxer painter’, and demonstrates how he earned his artist championship belt not only in painting but also lithography, and drawing.
The first retrospective of George Bellows (1882-1925) in 30 years and and the first ever in the UK reveals the man behind the most famous boxing paintings of all time, and analyses various paintings, drawings and lithographs by the artist in a range of topics. Not since the John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) retrospective ‘Sargent and the Sea’ at the RA in 2010 has an American artist been greeted so warmly by visitors, demonstrating his youthful energy in his sport paintings before calmly revealing a softer slower-paced observer in his winter seasonal works.
In the beginnings of the exhibit, we are introduced to Bellows as a self-appointed ‘artist for the people’ as his works about immigration reveal a sympathetic vote towards the hardships of others pursuing ‘the American dream’, and for this the most serene painting in this section is Forty-two Kids (1907). Depicting immigrant children whom carried a tinge of sympathy but also fear from middle-class readers at the time, the eponymous kids might be children and naked but instead of showing signs of vulnerability, they are confident and the opposite of shy about swimming in a menacing-looking river. Their modest energy is shown radiantly by the then-emerging Bellows with a certain glow to his style that perfectly transitions into his next and most famous period: boxing.
Since 1900 prize fights were made illegal in New York state but this minor setback did not stop crowds and participants from continuing the brutal sport, and neither did it stop Bellows from painting brutal scenes where, similar to the immigrants pursuing the ‘American dream’, the prospect of becoming kings even for just one night was a worth a tango with death. From this period in his life, no painting is matched by Stag at Sharkey’s (1909, pictured) alluding to two male deers (stags) in close combat, exemplifying the unrecognised distinction between man and animal. Even Bellow’s makes a cameo appearance of sorts in the bottom-right of the ring, fully emercing himself in the customs of this tradition. But whilst the next three sections – The Building of the Modern City, The Edge of the City, and Leisure Activities – have their own ‘champions’, this critic found them to be a little cold (precisely their subject matter) and for this, the exhibition’s momentum came to a temporary halt, before some allegorical coal was applied to the proverbial engine which restarted the interest for the show. One such painting included in the Modern City section however, Excavation at Night (1908) appeared bland and below zero, despite the artist’s best efforts to capture an image of the changing industrial city where there is a mess of scenes juxtaposed together like something found in a charity shop. With the intention to depict New York’s installation of it’s present-day subway system, Night unfortunately attempts to represent the excavation site as a scar on the surrounding area and in doing so converts any expressions of sympathy to the area and it’s people, into stone.
With this in mind, Bellows’ attempts at representing the more tranquil of America’s natural scenery outside cities such as New York in the Edge of the City and Leisure Activities sections also fall short in the overall exhibition. During this stage in his painting career, Bellows became a self-appointed ambassador to American identity and for a brief stint focused his attention away from the industrialised city in order to depict natural beauty with a sentimental eye. However, it is Bellows’ Seascapes that capture his eye for conventional beauty as he paid homage to Winslow Homer (1836-1910) in a series of experimental paintings using energetic colours and tangled brushstrokes superbly in Forth and Back (1913, pictured), considering the transition into his darkest known works related to War. Here, Bellows’ talent for generating controversy in his depictions of brutal conflict remind viewers of the 2007 exhibition Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) retrospective Peace + Freedom at Tate Liverpool, and both artists common interest in savagery, separated by an ocean. Massacre at Dinant (1918) shows townspeople huddled together forming a train, displayed as the centre of attention in the canvas aware of soldiers off-screen so-to-speak preparing to fire unmercilessly. These sombre larger-scaled paintings demonstrate a greater confidence Bellows felt in his career, and are appropriately succeeded by his Lithography draughts which together express inspiration from Spanish Old Master painters El Greco (1541-1614) and Francisco Goya (1746-1828) notably Goya’s Disasters of War series (etched 1810-1820, first published 1863). These influences are best visualised in The Law is Too Slow (1923), a lithograph depicting a lynch mob burning a black-American alive at the stake, which aptly reflects common barbaric and racially unjustified practises in the south United States, equivalent to a Southern Gothic tale.
By the penultimate end of the retrospective, Bellows had settled into painting Portraits and Family whilst paying homage to Edouard Manet (1832-1883) in presenting familial warmth, coming-of-age, and elegant life found in Emma and Her Children (1923) which bears some resemblance to Manet’s Le Repos (Repose) (1870-71, pictured). Unbekown to everyone that knew him, Bellow’s passed away suddenly at 42 years old in 1925, leaving behind perhaps his most iconic and oft-referenced painting Dempsey and Firpo (1924, pictured) a scene from a boxing match that has since it’s first exhibition has become fixated in practically every sport boxing film, from Raging Bull (1980, directed by Martin Scorsese) to Cinderella Man (2005, directed by Ron Howard). Arguably, Dempsey does not contain the same velocity and ferociousness of Sharkey’s but maintains a classic approach that pulsates memories of 1920s America in the viewer’s mind.
Inviting and breath-taking seascapes, boxing scenes, and evocations of war make this show what it is, and Bellows an influential painter to this day, and Dempsey remains this critic’s second-favourite Bellows painting behind Sharkey’s, significantly ending this near-flawless retrospective with a bang, or better yet a left-hook.
