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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.
The source for the 1917 lithograph Dance in a Madhouse was a drawing the artist had done a decade earlier. Bellows’s biographer Charles Morgan recounts that on a trip home to Columbus in 1907, the artist went to see a friend who worked as the superintendent of the Ohio State Mental Hospital. [3] He visited during a social hour at the home and was inspired to capture the experience in a drawing. After he took up lithography in 1916, he revisited the subject in this print. He described the memory in this way:
For years the amusement hall was a gloomy old brown vault where on Thursday nights the patients indulged in “Round Dances” interspersed with two-steps and waltzes by the visitors. Each of the characters in this print represents a definite individual. Happy Jack boasted of being able to crack hickory nuts with his gums. Joe Peachmyer was a constant borrower of a nickel or a chew. The gentleman in the center had succeeded with a number of perpetual motion machines. The lady in the middle center assured the artist by looking at his palm that he was a direct descendant of Christ. This is the happier side of a vast world which a more considerate and wise society could reduce to a no[t] inconsiderable degree. [4]
Bellows’s lithograph depicts several of the residents of the institution engaged in an exuberant dance while others observe from benches at the right. Shadowy architectural details such as windows, wainscoting, and pilasters are visible in the background. The source of the music that accompanies their dance is a small band in the back left corner; the conductor, arms outstretched, is just visible. In the foreground, the frieze of figures across the picture plane underscores the emphatic horizontality of the composition. At left, a woman links hands with her dance partner. She leans back precariously and leers at the viewer; his grip on her hands might be the only thing preventing her from toppling backwards. Her light dress is one of the brightest areas of the composition. In the center, a man gesticulates expressively toward his partner. Behind them, a fair, slender woman raises her arms in an animated gesture; she appears to be lost in her own world, oblivious to the crowd around her. The figures seated on the benches at the right exhibit varied emotions. While one woman hides her face in her hands, seemingly overcome by despair, another sits quietly next to her, absorbed in her own thoughts. The woman behind them, in contrast, stares out at the viewer, her face frozen in an eerie grimace. In fact, many of the faces seem mask-like or grotesque; Bellows’s debt to the nineteenth-century Spanish artist Francisco Goya is particularly evident here.
Bellows created Dance in a Madhouse in 1917, shortly after he took up lithography, and printed it with the assistance of printer George Miller. It is unknown why he decided to return to a composition he had first devised ten years earlier. It is clear, however, that the world was entering a particular period of chaos and uncertainty. By the time Bellows produced this print, Europe was already embroiled in a war that the United States would enter later that year. In 1918, Bellows produced a series of prints and paintings depicting the horrors of the war in Europe; perhaps Dance in a Madhouse forecasted the dark times to come.
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] Charles H Morgan, George Bellows: Painter of America (New York: Reynal and Company, 1965), 67.
[4] Bellows, quoted in Myers and Ayres, George Bellows, 33.
ProvenanceBarbara B. Millhouse, New York, acquired from Hirschl and Adler Galleries. [1]
Notes:
[1] Reynolda House provenance research and cataloging paperwork, circa 1994
Exhibition HistoryThe Art of Dance
Reynolda House Museum of American Art
Winston-Salem, NC (4/3/2007 - 9/16/2007)
Published References
DepartmentCollection of Barbara B. Millhouse
Dance in a Madhouse
Artist
George Wesley Bellows
(1882 - 1925)
Date1917
Mediumlithograph
DimensionsFrame: 25 1/16 x 30 15/16 in. (63.7 x 78.6 cm)
Image: 18 1/4 x 24 1/4 in. (46.4 x 61.6 cm)
SignedGeo. Bellows / L.B.B.
Credit LineCourtesy of Barbara B. Millhouse
CopyrightCopyright Restricted
Object numberIL2003.1.7
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.
The source for the 1917 lithograph Dance in a Madhouse was a drawing the artist had done a decade earlier. Bellows’s biographer Charles Morgan recounts that on a trip home to Columbus in 1907, the artist went to see a friend who worked as the superintendent of the Ohio State Mental Hospital. [3] He visited during a social hour at the home and was inspired to capture the experience in a drawing. After he took up lithography in 1916, he revisited the subject in this print. He described the memory in this way:
For years the amusement hall was a gloomy old brown vault where on Thursday nights the patients indulged in “Round Dances” interspersed with two-steps and waltzes by the visitors. Each of the characters in this print represents a definite individual. Happy Jack boasted of being able to crack hickory nuts with his gums. Joe Peachmyer was a constant borrower of a nickel or a chew. The gentleman in the center had succeeded with a number of perpetual motion machines. The lady in the middle center assured the artist by looking at his palm that he was a direct descendant of Christ. This is the happier side of a vast world which a more considerate and wise society could reduce to a no[t] inconsiderable degree. [4]
Bellows’s lithograph depicts several of the residents of the institution engaged in an exuberant dance while others observe from benches at the right. Shadowy architectural details such as windows, wainscoting, and pilasters are visible in the background. The source of the music that accompanies their dance is a small band in the back left corner; the conductor, arms outstretched, is just visible. In the foreground, the frieze of figures across the picture plane underscores the emphatic horizontality of the composition. At left, a woman links hands with her dance partner. She leans back precariously and leers at the viewer; his grip on her hands might be the only thing preventing her from toppling backwards. Her light dress is one of the brightest areas of the composition. In the center, a man gesticulates expressively toward his partner. Behind them, a fair, slender woman raises her arms in an animated gesture; she appears to be lost in her own world, oblivious to the crowd around her. The figures seated on the benches at the right exhibit varied emotions. While one woman hides her face in her hands, seemingly overcome by despair, another sits quietly next to her, absorbed in her own thoughts. The woman behind them, in contrast, stares out at the viewer, her face frozen in an eerie grimace. In fact, many of the faces seem mask-like or grotesque; Bellows’s debt to the nineteenth-century Spanish artist Francisco Goya is particularly evident here.
Bellows created Dance in a Madhouse in 1917, shortly after he took up lithography, and printed it with the assistance of printer George Miller. It is unknown why he decided to return to a composition he had first devised ten years earlier. It is clear, however, that the world was entering a particular period of chaos and uncertainty. By the time Bellows produced this print, Europe was already embroiled in a war that the United States would enter later that year. In 1918, Bellows produced a series of prints and paintings depicting the horrors of the war in Europe; perhaps Dance in a Madhouse forecasted the dark times to come.
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] Charles H Morgan, George Bellows: Painter of America (New York: Reynal and Company, 1965), 67.
[4] Bellows, quoted in Myers and Ayres, George Bellows, 33.
ProvenanceBarbara B. Millhouse, New York, acquired from Hirschl and Adler Galleries. [1]
Notes:
[1] Reynolda House provenance research and cataloging paperwork, circa 1994
Exhibition HistoryThe Art of Dance
Reynolda House Museum of American Art
Winston-Salem, NC (4/3/2007 - 9/16/2007)
Published References
Status
Not on view