George Bellows exhibit @ MET

George Bellows is an American artist (1882-1925) from OH.  As a student at Ohio St., Bellows was a collegiate athlete & did illustrations for the school's yearbook on sporting events.  After graduation he moved to NYC, played semi-pro baseball while studying art @ the NY School of Art under the tutelage of Robert Henri.  Henri was recognized for his oil paintings depicting urban life and for teaching other painters such as Edward Hopper & Joseph Stella.  It was Henri who steered Bellows to pursue oil paintings in lieu of illustrations.  Bellow's began painting scenes of the underbelly of NYC life; industrial squalor & urban riffraff.  Though best known for his realistic paintings the variety of colors and subject matters merged into a modernistic style.  Bellow covered a plethora of subject matters: sporting events, landscapes & portraits.  Bellows also did a series of political drawings entitled, "Law Is Too Slow," depicting lynchings & executions.  I found his portrait of a street urchins as in, "Paddy Flannigan" to be provacative while the portraits of family & friends were tame & less arresting.  Bellows was constantly experiementing with the use of color.  Some paintings were in rich dark tones while others dazzled with beautiful, vivid color schemes.  Bellows' untimely death at the age of 43 from an appendicitis ended a promising career for an artist constantly in search of inspiration.  "There is nothing I do not want to know that has to do with life or art."  This is the 1st major retrospective of Bellows work is more than 50 years.  I suggest seeing his work now rather than putting it off.