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©
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
George Bellows

A Grandmother

1914
Oil on panel.
94 x 74.5 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
466
(
1980.69
)
Room 45
Level 1
Permanent Collection
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 Postpop rooms Rodin room
30 18th and 19th Centuries. Transatlantic Relations 31 19th Century. American Landscape and Environmental Awareness 32 19th Century. American Landscape and Urban Life 33 Recovering the ligth. Restoration of Waterloo Bridge, by André Derain 34 20th Century. Expressionist Landscapes 35 20th Century. Expressionist Portraits 36 20th Century. The Language of the Body 37 20th Century. Urban unrest 38 20th Century. Flowers 39 20th Century. Pioneers of abstraction 40 20th Century. Popular flavor 41 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition I 42 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition II 43 20th Century. Abstract Utopias 44 20th Century. Dada and Surrealism 45 20th Century. Interwar Realisms 46 20th Century. American Abstraction I 48 20th Century. Post-ward American Art 49 20th Century. Post-ward European Figurative Art 50 20th Century. Informalisms 51 20th Century. Homo Ludens 52 20th Century. Pop Art 53 Postpop rooms 54 Postpop rooms 55 Postpop rooms 56 Postpop rooms Rodin Exhibition room
Like John Sloan, George Bellows trained as an artist in New York under the supervision of the realist painter Robert Henri and was also involved with the group of The Eight. Although Bellows, a very talented painter, was not turned down by the spring exhibition of the National Academy of Design in 1907 and never officially belonged to The Eight, he nonetheless took part in some of the group’s shows, as he shared their dislike of academic rigidity and superficiality and embraced similar highly realistic social themes.

Bellows developed an interest in portraiture in his final years. This panel painting, entitled A Grandmother, was executed during summer 1914 on Monhegan, a small island off the coast of Maine, where the artist painted portraits of several locals. By choosing not to identify the sitter, Bellows presents us with an archetype. A women of mature years with great dignity and inner strength poses stiffly, gazing straight at the viewer. Bellows was always interested in the expressive potential of elderly people and, as in similar paintings, focuses his attention on the face and hands of the figure. The sobriety of form and colour — typical of this period — may be due to the impact of the radical modernism of the works exhibited at the Armory Show in 1913.

The palette, restricted to the red of the vertical bands of the curtains that frame the figure, the ochres of the flat background, the dark tones of the armchair and dress, and the light, glowing colours of the shawl and face, contrasts with the powerful illumination.

Paloma Alarcó

20th Centurys. XX - Realismos en NorteaméricaPaintingOilpanel
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A Grandmother. Una abuela, 1914
A Grandmother
George Bellows

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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A Grandmother. Una abuela, 1914
A Grandmother
George Bellows

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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