George Bellow's Favorite Snow

In January 1914, George Bellows wrote to a friend: “there has been none of my favorite snow. I must always paint the snow at least once a year.” Soon after, on February 13^th, a major blizzard hit New York City, inspiring the artist to paint “Love of Winter”. In this work, he used bright reds, yellows, and greens to intensify the winter scene. The broad, slashing brush strokes convey movement, wind, and speed. The energetic group of skaters and on lookers, composed of people of a range of ages and social classes, reflects the diversity the public parks and leisure activities in early 20^th century New York.

George Wesley Bellows was born on August 19, 1882 in Columbus, Ohio. He attended Ohio State University from 1901 until 1904. While an Ohio student he played baseball and basketball, in addition to providing illustrations for the Makio, the school’s student yearbook. Throughout college he worked as a commercial illustrator and he continued to accept magazine assignments throughout his life. Despite his athletic and commercial talents, Bellows desired to be a painter. He left Ohio State in 1904 just before he was about to graduate and moved to New York to study art. He became an American painter who ultimately became well known for his depictions of urban life in New York City.

In 1908, Bellows was first noticed when he organized an exhibition of urban studies. While many critics considered these to be crudely painted, others found them audacious and a step beyond the work of his teacher. Bellows' urban New York scenes depicted the vulgarity and chaos of working-class people and their neighborhoods while satirizing the upper classes. From 1907 through 1915, he executed a series of paintings depicting “New York City under snowfall”. These paintings were the main testing ground in which Bellows developed his strong sense of light and visual texture. They exhibited a bleak contrast between the blue and white expanses of snow and the rough and grimy surfaces of city buildings. He created images of rough and grimy men struggling to clear aware the pure snow to emphasize his comparisons. Bellows' series of paintings portrayed amateur boxing matches that were his signature contribution to art history. These paintings are characterized by dark atmospheres, through “which the bright, roughly lain brushstrokes of the human figures vividly strike with a strong sense of motion and direction.”

Growing prestige as a painter brought changes in his life and work. Though he continued his earlier themes, Bellows also began to receive portrait commissions, as well as social invitations, from New York's wealthy elite. Additionally, he followed Henri's lead and began to summer in Maine, painting seascapes on Monhegan and Matinicus islands.