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George Bellows (artist) American, 1882 - 1925 Both Members of This Club, 1909 oil on canvas Overall: 115 x 160.5 cm (45 1/4 x 63 3/16 in.) framed: 133 x 177.8 cm (52 3/8 x 70 in.) Chester Dale Collection 1944.13.1 On View |
Both Members of This Club was inspired by the fights Bellows attended at Tom Sharkey's Athletic Club in New York. At the time, public boxing matches were illegal in the city. Private organizations like Sharkey's made prospective fighters temporary members of the "club" on the night of the event to circumvent the law.
In the painting one can almost sense the atmosphere of stale cigar smoke and body heat that typified these back-room bouts. At the match's frenzied climax, the victorious fighter on the right lunges forward, while the nearly vanquished boxer on the left, his face contorted with pain, weakly resists the blow and momentarily postpones his imminent defeat. Bellows' rapid, slashing brushwork, his characteristic use of dramatic lighting and lurid color, his selection of stark angles and dramatic close-ups all enhance the scene's immediacy. Members of the audience, their faces horribly disfigured by vicarious passion, display an animalistic bloodlust that reveals much about the darker aspects of human nature. The artist is suggesting that the men in the ring, teamed in their physical struggle, also must contend with the larger, perhaps even more brutal adversary of social injustice.