Now open in the Royal Academy's Sackler Wing: George Bellows - Modern American Life.

America lost one of its greatest artists when George Bellows (1882–1925) died, at the age of forty-two, from a ruptured appendix.

Bellows's early fame rested on his powerful depictions of boxing matches and gritty scenes of New York City's tenement life.

But he also painted cityscapes, seascapes, war scenes, and portraits, and made illustrations and lithographs that addressed many of the social, political, and cultural issues of the day.

The Royal Academy show is a reduced version of an exhibition already seen in Washington and New York. Perhaps inevitably, since Bellows is best remembered for his depictions of prizefighting, this show is dominated by the boxing pictures, which extend from Stag at Sharkey's to Dempsey Through the Ropes a transition marking the change from no-holds-barred contests to the more organised sport we know today.

The Royal Academy show continues until the Ninth of June, 2013, in the gallery's Sackler Wing.  Click here for a summarizing video.

‘Bellows peerlessly captured the tumultuous rise of early-Twentieth Century America’ - The Daily Telegraph