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I draw direct on giant stones which I have ways and means of handling. … I print ap[p]roximately 50 proofs of each stone and while the stone is easy to spoil and change, by expert handling the proofs can be made to vary or not and the limit is only that of practicality of desire. The great disadvantage is that all of the editions must be pulled of course before a new drawing can be made on the stone. I have six stones and can draw on both sides. The process is chemical and not mechanical as in etching and engraving. The principle being the opposition of grease and water. We draw with sticks of grease loaded with lamp black with greasy ink or wash in a special and rare limestone. The white parts are kept wet when inking for printing. And the stone is treated with light etch and gum Arabic to reduce the grease and keep it in place. [1]
An avid draftsman since childhood, Bellows appreciated the immediacy of drawing directly on the stone, as well as the opportunities lithography offered for experimentation and refinement. From 1917 until his death, he worked in the medium with varying degrees of intensity. For example, he often produced prints in the winter time, noting that lithography was “great work for night and dark days, of which there are too many here in New York in winter.” [2]
Bellows had multiple sources for the subjects of his lithographs—his memories, his city, his family, his friends, current events, scenes from the art or sporting worlds, and old drawings produced years before. Sometimes he took the subject of a painting and produced a lithograph; other times, he worked the subject from a lithograph into a painting.
Nude Study, Woman Stretched on a Bed is one of Bellows’s eight lithographs of the same nude done in 1923–1924. [3] In this version, the model’s torso rests on a bed while her legs dangle off the side. Her body is bent at the waist at a near-right angle. Her left arm stretches full length to the right, and she rests her head on that arm, while the other is folded on top of her head and bent at the elbow so that only the upper arm is visible. Her tousled hair appears to be piled on top of her head, and her eyes and mouth are closed. The unguarded pose might be meant to suggest that she is sleeping, although the artist certainly posed her form deliberately. Her body is outlined in a strong black line, while a fainter gray line just barely suggests the contours of the bed. Bellows was expert in using varying degrees of shading to suggest the curves and planes of her body: light gray to outline her breasts, darker gray to suggest the modeling at her waist, still darker gray to create the shadow on the side of her neck and her knee, and inky black for her hair. The artist left large planes of her body—her arms, thighs, and stomach—white, as if a strong light shines on her from the upper left. He used cross-hatched lines to create the shadows cast by her body and left the rest of the sheet untouched.
The nude studies were some of the last lithographs that Bellows produced with his long-time printer Bolton Brown; the artist’s untimely death in 1925 abruptly ended their partnership. Throughout their years together, Brown worked closely with Bellows, even designing lithographic crayons specifically for the artist’s use. [4] Brown also signed all of the prints that he produced with Bellows, asserting the importance of their collaboration in the production of lithographs of the highest quality and artistic merit.
Notes:
[1] Bellows, quoted in Jane Myers and Linda Ayres, George Bellows: The Artist and His Lithographs (Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter Museum, 1988), 15.
[2] Bellows, quoted in Myers and Ayres, George Bellows, 15.
[3] Myers and Ayres, George Bellows, 126.
[4] Myers and Ayres, George Bellows, 74.
ProvenanceFrom 1977
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by Stuart P. Feld sometime in 1977. [1]
Notes:
[1] Letter, May 11, 1998, Object File.
Exhibition History
DepartmentAmerican Art
Nude Study, Woman Stretched on Bed
Artist
George Wesley Bellows
(1882 - 1925)
Date1923-1924
Mediumlithograph on Basingwerk parchment
DimensionsFrame: 24 1/4 x 17 5/8 in. (61.6 x 44.8 cm)
Paper: 14 1/8 x 11 in. (35.9 x 27.9 cm)
SignedGeo Bellows
Credit LineGift of Stuart P. Feld
CopyrightPublic Domain
Object number1977.2.3
DescriptionIn 1917, shortly after he first began experimenting with the medium of lithography, George Bellows described his technique in a letter to a friend:I draw direct on giant stones which I have ways and means of handling. … I print ap[p]roximately 50 proofs of each stone and while the stone is easy to spoil and change, by expert handling the proofs can be made to vary or not and the limit is only that of practicality of desire. The great disadvantage is that all of the editions must be pulled of course before a new drawing can be made on the stone. I have six stones and can draw on both sides. The process is chemical and not mechanical as in etching and engraving. The principle being the opposition of grease and water. We draw with sticks of grease loaded with lamp black with greasy ink or wash in a special and rare limestone. The white parts are kept wet when inking for printing. And the stone is treated with light etch and gum Arabic to reduce the grease and keep it in place. [1]
An avid draftsman since childhood, Bellows appreciated the immediacy of drawing directly on the stone, as well as the opportunities lithography offered for experimentation and refinement. From 1917 until his death, he worked in the medium with varying degrees of intensity. For example, he often produced prints in the winter time, noting that lithography was “great work for night and dark days, of which there are too many here in New York in winter.” [2]
Bellows had multiple sources for the subjects of his lithographs—his memories, his city, his family, his friends, current events, scenes from the art or sporting worlds, and old drawings produced years before. Sometimes he took the subject of a painting and produced a lithograph; other times, he worked the subject from a lithograph into a painting.
Nude Study, Woman Stretched on a Bed is one of Bellows’s eight lithographs of the same nude done in 1923–1924. [3] In this version, the model’s torso rests on a bed while her legs dangle off the side. Her body is bent at the waist at a near-right angle. Her left arm stretches full length to the right, and she rests her head on that arm, while the other is folded on top of her head and bent at the elbow so that only the upper arm is visible. Her tousled hair appears to be piled on top of her head, and her eyes and mouth are closed. The unguarded pose might be meant to suggest that she is sleeping, although the artist certainly posed her form deliberately. Her body is outlined in a strong black line, while a fainter gray line just barely suggests the contours of the bed. Bellows was expert in using varying degrees of shading to suggest the curves and planes of her body: light gray to outline her breasts, darker gray to suggest the modeling at her waist, still darker gray to create the shadow on the side of her neck and her knee, and inky black for her hair. The artist left large planes of her body—her arms, thighs, and stomach—white, as if a strong light shines on her from the upper left. He used cross-hatched lines to create the shadows cast by her body and left the rest of the sheet untouched.
The nude studies were some of the last lithographs that Bellows produced with his long-time printer Bolton Brown; the artist’s untimely death in 1925 abruptly ended their partnership. Throughout their years together, Brown worked closely with Bellows, even designing lithographic crayons specifically for the artist’s use. [4] Brown also signed all of the prints that he produced with Bellows, asserting the importance of their collaboration in the production of lithographs of the highest quality and artistic merit.
Notes:
[1] Bellows, quoted in Jane Myers and Linda Ayres, George Bellows: The Artist and His Lithographs (Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter Museum, 1988), 15.
[2] Bellows, quoted in Myers and Ayres, George Bellows, 15.
[3] Myers and Ayres, George Bellows, 126.
[4] Myers and Ayres, George Bellows, 74.
ProvenanceFrom 1977
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by Stuart P. Feld sometime in 1977. [1]
Notes:
[1] Letter, May 11, 1998, Object File.
Exhibition History
Status
Not on view