Artwork Page for Introducing the Champion, No. 1, Large

Details / Information for Introducing the Champion, No. 1, Large

Introducing the Champion, No. 1, Large

1916

George Bellows

(American, 1882–1925)
Culture
America
Medium
lithograph
Credit Line
Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr. 1937.494
Catalogue raisonné
Mason 26
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

Due to the popularity of his early boxing paintings such as Stag at Sharkey’s, Bellows was often commissioned by newspapers and magazines to depict sporting events, both actual and fictional. One of the artist’s first boxing prints, Introducing the Champion was inspired by a drawing he made three years earlier to illustrate a short story in American Magazine, which describes an imagined lightweight champion nicknamed Tornado Black. The cocky gloating of this character, who panders to the crowd, provides the impetus for Bellows’s rendering.
A vertically oriented lithograph with high-contrast shading depicts a boxing ring, looking over the heads of the audience. In the center, a large referee with light skin and an open mouth raises one arm. To our left, a shirtless boxer with light skin bows his head. To our right, another boxer rests as a man in a striped shirt leans in. A dense crowd in dark clothing clusters around the ring's base.

Introducing the Champion, No. 1, Large

1916

George Bellows

(American, 1882–1925)
America

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