:
June 19, 2013

Media Contact:
Nancy Colvin, 614.629.0303
           nancy.colvin@cmaohio.org


CMA PRESENTS GEORGE BELLOWS AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

(Columbus, OH) - The Columbus Museum of Art celebrates one of the city’s best loved native sons with George Bellows and the American Experience, on view August 23, 2013 – January 4, 2014. The exhibition highlights the importance of CMA’s Bellows collection, widely recognized as the best in the world, and showcases the artist’s vibrant, groundbreaking works. Bellows and the American Experience brings together more than 35 of his most stunning works from museums and private collections throughout the United States. The world of his paintings comes to life through period photographs, descriptions by his friends, thoughts from his own record book, as well as caricatures and conservation studies.

“For the past year our Bellows paintings have traveled the world as part of a major retrospective that drew crowds to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Royal Academy in London,” said CMA Curator of American Art Melissa Wolfe.  “We’re excited to welcome them home and to be able to celebrate the profound impact George Bellows had, and continues to have, on the art world.” 

George Wesley Bellows, one of the country’s most celebrated twentieth-century artists, is especially known for his controversial boxing images and evocative urban scenes. His career, although brief, was dazzling. An avid athlete, Bellows played shortstop for the Buckeyes before leaving Columbus in 1904 to study art in New York City. Within five years the young artist had taken the American art world by storm, winning every major award and rising from art student to acclaimed luminary. 

He was a college dropout at twenty-two, a member of the prestigious National Academy at twenty-seven, the country’s most important lithographer at thirty-five, and tragically dead from a ruptured appendix at forty-three. In these twenty-one years of professional life, Bellows created an enormous body of work that conveyed his lively sense of humor, his seemingly effortless talent, and his political and social sensibilities. Bellows captured the essence of his subjects and delivered it to his viewers with perception, compassion, and, occasionally outrage. 

The Museum will host an international scholarly symposium November 8 and 9 that will explore many of the issues and concerns central to the artist’s work.

George Bellows and the American Experience is supported by the Friends of Bellows and media sponsor Ohio Magazine. 

The Columbus Museum of Art creates great experiences with great art for everyone. The Greater Columbus Arts Council, Nationwide Foundation, Ohio Arts Council, and the Charlotte R. Haller, Lewis K. Osborne, and Robert B. Hurst funds of The Columbus Foundation provide ongoing support. CMA and the Museum Store are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM, and until 8:30 PM every Thursday. The Palette Express is open Tuesday through Friday from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM, Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM. Museum admission is $12 for adults; $8 for seniors and students 6 and older; and free for members, children 5 and younger. Admission is free for all on Sundays. CMA Free Sundays presented by Arts Alive is made possible through a grant from PNC Foundation. For additional information, call 614.221.4848 or visit www.columbusmuseum.org.

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