Business Men's Class1916
This scene takes place at the West Side YMCA, where George Bellows lived when he arrived in New York City from Columbus, Ohio, in 1904. More about this work
About this work
This scene takes place at the West Side YMCA, where George Bellows lived when he arrived in New York City from Columbus, Ohio, in 1904. Worry about the potentially debilitating impact of sedentary office jobs inspired new forms of exercise, such as calisthenics. Here, we see the artist’s satirical eye, as men of various body types and abilities attempt to mimic the graceful movements of the instructor.
Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
How it was made
- Lithograph
- Drawn on limestone with a greasy crayon or ink. The stone is kept damp, and the oily printing ink clings only to the drawing. Invented in the 1790s, it let artists print exactly as they drew.
George Bellows
American, 1882–1925
Bellows left Ohio State University to study in New York with Robert Henri and became the most celebrated of the younger realists around him. He painted the city with vigorous brushwork: tenement children, the excavation for Pennsylvania Station, Hudson River docks and, most famously, illegal prize fights such as Stag at Sharkey’s. He took up lithography in 1916 and became one of its leading American practitioners. He died at forty-two of a ruptured appendix.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Cleveland Museum of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1936.630
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Type
- Department
- Prints
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
