Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts

This painting is included in the George Bellows Catalogue Raisonné compiled by Glenn C. Peck in cooperation with the artist's daughter.

Provenance:

Estate of the Artist, until 1925

Emma S. Bellows, his wife

Estate of Emma S. Bellows, until 1959

Collection of Richard W. Case, Baltimore, 1969-2004

Exhibited:

Tenth Annual Exhibition, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI, April 23 – May 31, 1924, no.80.

Exhibition by George Bellows: Paintings, Drawings, Lithographs, Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries, New York, January 2 – 21, 1928, no. 8.

Thirty-six Paintings by George Bellows, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH, October 3– November 6, 1940.

George Bellows, H.V. Allison & Co, New York, May 3 – 28, 1960, no. 12.

Recorded:

The artist’s Record Book B, p. 290

Born in Columbus, Ohio in 1882, George Bellows moved to New York in 1904 to study at the New York School of Art with Robert Henri. Although never a bona fide member of the Eight, a circle which included his lifelong mentor Henri and other urban realists like John Sloan and William Glackens, Bellows shared the group’s interest in flouting the thematic and stylistic conventions of academic art. Diverse in subject matter, his works include urban scenes, portraiture, landscapes and seascapes. Best known, however, are the artist’s dynamic depictions of boxing matches, which are exemplified by the masterpiece Stag at Sharkey’s from 1909. Demonstrating a masterful handling of paint, these works evoke the muscularity and immediacy that characterize Bellows’ unique and highly successful painting style.

Beginning in 1920, the artist spent his summers in Woodstock, New York where he had purchased a plot of land and built a home for his family. This living arrangement allowed him to conveniently divide his time between various artistic practices; devoting the winter season, which was spent in his New York City studio, to the production of dramatic lithographic images, Bellows then made full use of the beautiful summer light and airy spaciousness of his country home to create landscapes and large-scale portraits. While in Woodstock, he frequently went sketching en plein air with his close friend Eugene Speicher. Documented in a note written to Robert Henri in November 1922, Bellows recalled, “Gene [Speicher] and I and Charlie [Rosen] have been going out every day at 8:30 and coming home at dark with landscapes.” ¹

Completed during this productive and inspired month, Stuart Jones’ Barn presents a compelling vision of the American countryside, one that discerns splendor in squalor. Depicting a ramshackle barn and an old cow, the humble scene of a dilapidated farm is transformed by the artist’s bold, expressive style into a fresh vista teeming with vitality. The artist creates this sense of spontaneity and energy by employing short, effervescent dabs of built-up impasto to define the golden-colored straw and the bluish-black mud that covers the ground of the corral. At the same time, the long, broad strokes of paint that demarcate the wooden boards of the red farmhouse and the adjoining barn serve as stabilizing forces, effectively forming a solid yet lively composition. In the center of it all, a singular dot of vivid red, a shade not repeated in the painting, draws the viewer’s attention to the comb of the rooster perching in the hayloft.

Standing with its backside to the viewer, the cow looks presciently into the distance, focusing on the rumblings of a storm above the still verdant trees. Too remarkable to overlook, the foreshortening of the bovine’s form, rendered with a few deliberate strokes of pure pigment, evidences Bellows’ painterly virtuosity. Meanwhile, the work’s closed-in space, which contrasts the open expansiveness of his seascapes and other landscapes, intensifies the feeling that something beyond the viewer’s perception is happening. Displaying a mystical, almost visionary quality of light, the vibrancy of the color scheme is enhanced by the heavy glaze that the artist used on his paintings from the years 1921 to 1923. A devoted realist who only painted scenes that moved him, Bellows skillfully attuned his brushstroke and palette to match the emotional energy of the scene portrayed. Marked by a fluid naturalness, Stuart Jones’ Barn exudes the confident enthusiasm of the mature artist and illustrates the powerful vigor of his no holds barred style.