Artwork Page for Reducing Exercises

Details / Information for Reducing Exercises

Reducing Exercises

1916

George Bellows

(American, 1882–1925)
Culture
America
Medium
lithograph
Measurements
Image: 44.5 x 42.1 cm (17 1/2 x 16 9/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr. 1937.478
Catalogue raisonné
Mason 22
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

Fueled by the advertising industry and the increasing popularity of movies, the ideal standard for women’s bodies began to evolve during the early 20th century, fostering a preference for more curvaceous profiles with thinner waists. Bellows’s Reducing Exercises presents a woman dutifully engaged in changing her physique while her male companion sleeps. When he first exhibited the print, the artist provided an accompanying quip: “Gymnastics before retiring are supposed to reduce the flesh. The husband is contented with his figure.”
A vertically oriented lithograph in black ink on light paper depicts two light-toned figures in a dark room. In the foreground, a person lies on the floor, one leg raised vertically and arms behind their head. Behind them, a second figure lies in a bed covered by a checkered quilt, watching. Heavy black shadows consume the background, contrasting with the light figures and a striped chair cushion in the lower right.

Reducing Exercises

1916

George Bellows

(American, 1882–1925)
America

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