Mother and Children
1916
Medium
lithograph in black
Dimensions
image: 28.3 x 28.6 cm (11 1/8 x 11 1/4 in.) sheet: 42.6 x 40.9 cm (16 3/4 x 16 1/8 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
Accession Number
1983.1.87
Art Historical Context
George Bellows' *Mother and Children* (1916) captures a tender domestic moment amid the artist's signature realist style. A leading figure in the Ashcan, Bellows was renowned for gritty depictions of urban life, boxing matches, and social inequities in early 20th-century America Created during World War I, intimate lithograph shifts focus familial warmth, offering a poignant counterpoint to the era's upheavals and highlighting Bellows' versatility in portraying everyday humanity. Executed as a black-ink lithograph, the work exemplifies Bellows' mastery of this planographic printmaking techniq...
About the Artist
George Bellows
George Wesley Bellows was born on August 12, 1882, in Columbus, Ohio, the only child of building contractor George Bellows Sr. and Anna Smith Bellows, with an older half-sister, Laura. A talented athlete who excelled in baseball and basketball at Ohio State University from 1901 to 1904, Bellows illustrated for the school yearbook before rejecting a professional baseball contract to pursue art. In ...