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Notable people · Artist

George Bellows

Columbus-born realist painter and lithographer of the Ashcan School, best known for boxing pictures such as Stag at Sharkey's (1909), now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Born August 12, 1882, Columbus
Died January 8, 1925, New York City, NY

George Bellows
Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born
August 12, 1882, Columbus (Franklin County) source
Died
January 8, 1925, New York City, NY source
Buried
Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn source
Also known as
George Bellows
Education
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 1901-1904, did not graduate
New York School of Art (under Robert Henri), New York, NY
Known as
Artist
Organizations
Ohio State University

Life story

George Bellows was born in Columbus, the only child of a builder-class family. He studied at Ohio State from 1901 to 1904, playing baseball and basketball and drawing for the yearbook, then left to pursue art in New York.

He studied under Robert Henri at the New York School of Art and became a leading Ashcan School painter of city life.

His best-known works include Men of the Docks (1912), Cliff Dwellers (1913) and Dempsey and Firpo (1924). He taught at the Art Students League and the Art Institute of Chicago and made lithographs from 1916.

He died in 1925 of a ruptured appendix at 42 and is buried in Brooklyn.

Ohio ties

  • Columbus, 265 East Rich Street (1882-1904)
    birthplace and family home; his father was a Columbus architect and builder Franklin County · source
  • Columbus (Ohio State University) (1901-1904)
    student; played baseball and basketball and illustrated the Makio yearbook; left without a degree Franklin County · source
  • Columbus (1906, 1913 and other visits)
    painted Portrait of My Father there at Christmas 1906 and Ohio State president William Oxley Thompson in the winter of 1913 Franklin County · source
  • Columbus (Columbus Museum of Art) (by 1925 to present)
    owned his Polo Game (Polo at Lakewood, 1910) by 1925; holds a large Bellows collection and the George Bellows Center, opened 2021 Franklin County · source
  • Cleveland (Cleveland Museum of Art) (1922 to present)
    holds Stag at Sharkey's (1909), Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection Cuyahoga County · source

Timeline

  1. 1882 Born August 12 in Columbus to George Bellows, an architect and builder, and Anna Smith Bellows (Wikipedia notes some sources give August 19). source
  2. 1901 Turned down a baseball offer from an Indianapolis scout and enrolled at Ohio State, where he played baseball and basketball and drew for the Makio yearbook. source
  3. 1904 Left Ohio State without a degree and moved to New York to study under Robert Henri. source
  4. 1906 Opened his first New York studio; painted Portrait of My Father in Columbus over the Christmas holidays. source
  5. 1908 Showed his first landscape at the National Academy of Design, which won the second Hallgarten prize. source
  6. 1909 Painted Stag at Sharkey's and was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design at 27, the youngest ever. source
  7. 1910 Painted the Polo Game from drawings made at Lakewood, a picture the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts later owned; married Emma Louise Story on September 23. source
  8. 1913 Elected a full National Academician; that winter painted Ohio State president William Oxley Thompson in Columbus, which won the Academy's Maynard Portrait Prize in 1914. source
  9. 1916 Installed a lithography press; from 1921 to 1924 he worked with master printer Bolton Brown. source
  10. 1921 Painted Portrait of My Mother, setting her in his Columbus childhood home as he remembered it; it won the Art Institute of Chicago's Logan Purchase Prize in 1923. source
  11. 1922 Stag at Sharkey's entered the Cleveland Museum of Art's permanent collection. source
  12. 1925 Died January 8 in New York of peritonitis after a ruptured appendix, aged 42; the Metropolitan Museum of Art held a memorial exhibition that year. source
  13. 1932 His works were shown hors concours in the painting and graphic arts competitions of the Los Angeles Olympics. source
  14. 2021 The Columbus Museum of Art opened the George Bellows Center in November for exhibitions, publications and research. source

What George is known for

  • Stag at Sharkey's (1909)
  • Ashcan School painter
  • Men of the Docks (1912)
  • Cliff Dwellers (1913)
  • Dempsey and Firpo (1924)

Stories

The ballplayer who picked painting

Bellows could draw before kindergarten, and his Columbus teachers had him decorate the classroom blackboards for holidays. At about ten he took up baseball and basketball and became good enough to play semipro ball for years. In his senior year of high school a scout from the Indianapolis baseball team made him an offer; he turned it down and enrolled at Ohio State in 1901, where he played on the baseball and basketball teams and drew for the Makio yearbook. People urged him toward professional baseball, and his parents did not encourage his art, but he wanted to paint. In 1904 he left Ohio State without a degree and went to New York to study with Robert Henri.

Source

Painting Columbus from memory

The catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum's 1925 memorial exhibition shows how often Bellows brought his work home. He painted Portrait of My Father, the Columbus architect and builder George Bellows Sr., in Columbus over the Christmas holidays of 1906, two years after leaving for New York. In the winter of 1913 he painted Ohio State president William Oxley Thompson, who had headed the university when Bellows left it; the portrait won the National Academy's Maynard Portrait Prize in 1914. In 1921, in New York, he painted Portrait of My Mother and set her in the room of his Columbus childhood home as he remembered it. The Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, now the Columbus Museum of Art, lent his Polo Game to the memorial show.

Source

Stag at Sharkey's

Stag at Sharkey's (1909) shows a bout at Sharkey's Athletic Club, a New York saloon with a back-room ring run by former fighter Tom "Sailor" Sharkey, where Bellows was a regular. Public prize fights were illegal in New York then, so bouts were staged as private club events, and an outside fighter was given a temporary membership and called a "stag." The painting has been in the Cleveland Museum of Art since 1922, in the Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection. The museum's own label notes that Bellows grew up in Columbus and played baseball and basketball at Ohio State. The museum has released its image under CC0.

Source

Honors and things named for them

  • Called the most famous American artist of his time (Joyce Carol Oates, per page)

Named for George Bellows

Family

  • father: George Bellows Sr.
  • mother: Anna Wilhelmina Smith

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

12
  • 1 Ohio Historical Marker 75-25, George Bellows / Roy Lichtenstein, at the Columbus Museum of Art
    Columbus, 480 E. Broad Street Franklin County · source
  • Columbus Museum of Art and its George Bellows Center (shares the marker's location)
    Columbus, 480 E. Broad Street Franklin County · source
  • Birthplace and family home, 265 East Rich Street (unknown)
    Columbus Franklin County · source
  • 2 Snowden-Gray House, rebuilt in 1872 by his father, architect George Bellows Sr. (Ohio Historical Marker 119-25)
    Columbus, 530 East Town Street Franklin County · source
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, home of Stag at Sharkey's
    Cleveland, University Circle Cuyahoga County · source
  • Ohio State University, where he studied and played 1901-1904
    Columbus Franklin County · source

Places in Ohio to see

Ohio places

Where George Bellows was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Myths and corrections

Things often said about George Bellows, and what the record shows.

Often said Bellows left Ohio State just before he was to graduate.

The record Wikipedia says so, but the Metropolitan Museum's 1925 memorial catalogue says he left Columbus at the beginning of his senior year to study art in New York. Either way he took no degree. source

  • Disputed: Wikipedia gives his birth date as either August 12 or August 19, 1882.

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

  • Mrs. Chester Dale Artist: George Bellows (American, Columbus, Ohio 1882–1925 New York) Date: 1919 Medium: Oil on canvas
    Mrs. Chester Dale Artist: George Bellows (American, Columbus, Ohio 1882–1925 New York) Date: 1919 Medium: Oil ...
    CC0
  • Nideen at public bath. Etching by George Bellows
    Nideen at public bath. Etching by George Bellows
    Public domain
  • Taken at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on July 15, 2023. A plaque describing the work can be seen in the bottom le
    Taken at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on July 15, 2023. A plaque describing the work can be seen in the...
    CC0
  • George Bellows
    Public domain
  • George Bellows
    Public domain
  • 'The Cartoonists', by Art Young, 1917, published in The Masses [when ?] shows from the top : Charles Allen Winter, Corne
    'The Cartoonists', by Art Young, 1917, published in The Masses [when ?] shows from the top : Charles Allen Win...
    Public domain
  • George Bellows
    Public domain
  • George Bellows
    Public domain
  • George Bellows, from a photograph made in September, 1924
    George Bellows, from a photograph made in September, 1924
    Public domain
  • Print; Prints
    Print; Prints
    CC0
  • Print; Prints
    Print; Prints
    CC0
  • Blessed are the Peacemakers by George Bellows. Anti-war cartoon depicting Jesus with a halo in prison stripes alongside
    Blessed are the Peacemakers by George Bellows. Anti-war cartoon depicting Jesus with a halo in prison stripes ...
    Public domain

Further reading

Sources

Confidence. Medium: the main facts were confirmed, but some details (often an address or ZIP code) were not.

Every link goes to the original source. Profile researched 2026-10-15.

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