{"data":{"id":"94","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":94,"topgoose_id":2792,"tms_id":94,"display_name":"George Bellows","sort_name":"Bellows George","display_date":"1882–1925","begin_date":"1882","end_date":"1925","biography":"\u003cp\u003eWith his depictions of streetscapes, tenements, athletes, and city dwellers, George Bellows became one of the foremost exponents of urban realist painting in the early years of the twentieth century. At the outset of his career, Bellows emulated the loose brushwork of his mentor, leading Ashcan School figure \u003ca href=\"/artists/597\"\u003eRobert Henri\u003c/a\u003e, but by the 1920s he had shifted to a stylized aesthetic of smooth curves and monumental, tubular forms, as in \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/214\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eDempsey and Firpo\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, one his most ambitious late paintings.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo supplement his income as a painter, Bellows worked as a newspaper sports illustrator, and the events he covered often found their way into his art. Here he portrays a pivotal moment in the famous prizefight between American heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey and his Argentine rival, Luis Firpo, on September 14, 1923, at the Polo Grounds in New York. Dempsey was the eventual victor, but Bellows represents the startling moment when Firpo knocked his opponent out of the ring with a tremendous blow to the jaw. The painting’s drama hinges on its underlying compositional structure: Firpo’s erect body forms a powerful triangle, the leftward diagonal of his swinging fist providing a forceful counter to Dempsey’s overturned body. Bellows was present among the journalists at ringside, and art historians have suggested that either the bald figure at the far left or the man beneath Dempsey, pushing him back up, could have been based on the artist himself. Although Firpo had launched Dempsey out of the ring with his notorious right hook, the artist instead portrayed him swinging with his left. For Bellows, amplifying geometric tension took precedence over anecdotal detail.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"gray\"\u003eDana Miller and Adam D. Weinberg,\u0026nbsp;\u003ca href=\"https://shop.whitney.org/products/whitney-handbook-of-the-collection\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eHandbook of the Collection\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2015), 61.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":true,"artport":false,"biennial":false,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500003261","wikidata_id":"Q167132","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:36:09.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-31T07:00:35.312-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/94/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/94/exhibitions"}}}}