Powerful hands of Geroge Bellows: Drawings from Boston

The Powerful Hand of George Bellows: Drawings from the Boston Public Library

June 21st through August 31st,
Focus Gallery, San Antonio Museum of Art

The San Antonio Museum of Art is pleased to present The Powerful Hand of George Bellows: Drawings from the Boston Public Library in the Focus Gallery beginning June 21st. Considered the most important collection of Bellows’ graphic art in the United States, the exhibition sets a new standard for recording the history and significance of the artist’s drawings.

Born in Columbus, Ohio in 1882, George Bellows was known for his painting of urban scenes, and he was often linked with the Ash Can School—a group of early 20th-century American artists known for their gutsy, realistic depictions of everyday life. Bellows’ meteoric rise to success began when he moved to New York City in 1904.

In the next five years, he rose from beginning art student to critical and commercial success, culminating in his election as associate of the National Academy of Design in 1909. He was a college drop-out at 22, member of the National Academy at 27, the country’s most accomplished lithographer at 35, and dead of appendicitis at 43.

The Powerful Hand of George Bellows presents for the first time to a national audience the outstanding collection of drawings donated by Albert Wiggin to the Boston Public Library. Wiggin, who grew up and began his banking career in Boston before moving to New York, collected over 5,000 prints and drawings, mostly by Old Masters and late nineteenth century English and French artists, but including a few, like Bellows, who established their reputations during his lifetime.

This traveling exhibition has been organized by the Trust for Museum Exhibitions in Washington , D.C. , in collaboration with the Boston Public Library. The exhibition is supported by the Helen and Everett H. Jones Exhibition Fund.

In conjunction with the exhibition, The Louis A. and Francine B. Wagner Lecture Series presents a lecture by Robert Conway, curator of the exhibition, entitled “CHOCK FULL O NUTS: Bellows, Boxing and Ballyhoo”, on Sunday, June 22nd, at 3 p.m.. The lecture is free with museum admission and a reception will follow.

Leigh Baldwin
Communications Manager
San Antonio Museum of Art
200 West Jones Avenue
San Antonio, TX 78215
www.samuseum.org