Nude with Red Hair
1920
Painter, American, 1882 - 1925

Nude with Red Hair is one of two nude subjects that Bellows painted in his rural Woodstock, New York, studio in July 1920. The model has been identified as Agnes Tait, a young art student who was attending the Art Students League’s summer school in Woodstock. Both the figure’s pose, modestly covering her breasts with her raised left forearm and hand, and the use of light are strongly reminiscent of Titian’s famous Venus with a Mirror, which Bellows may have known through a reproduction or one of the numerous copies or variants after it.
Bellows’s awareness of the importance of life drawing and old master precedents can be traced to his education with Robert Henri and remained in evidence throughout his career. Art historians have generally neglected George Bellows’s nude compositions despite the fact that they represent a significant part of his oeuvre. As early as 1905 Bellows had received recognition for his skill in life drawing as a student at the New York School of Art, and by 1910 he was teaching life classes at the Art Students League. Among his final major paintings are Nude with Hexagonal Quilt and Two Women (1924, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas), which is based on another famous painting by Titian: Sacred and Profane Love (c. 1515, Galleria Borghese, Rome). These last nudes depicting women shuttered away from the outside world in Bellows’s Woodstock studio stand in stark contrast to the public spectacles featured in his early, aggressively masculine boxing scenes.
Artwork overview
-
Medium
oil on canvas
-
Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 110.9 x 86.5 cm (43 11/16 x 34 1/16 in.)
framed: 138.4 x 113 x 7.6 cm (54 1/2 x 44 1/2 x 3 in.) -
Accession
1963.10.84
More About this Artwork
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
The artist [1882-1925]; by inheritance to his wife, Emma S. Bellows [1884-1959]; purchased May 1945 through (H.V. Allison & Co., New York) by Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1926
Forty-Sixth Annual Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Providence Art Club, Rhode Island, 1926, no. 1, repro., as Woman with Red Hair.
1944
Paintings by George Bellows, H.V. Allison & Co., New York, 1944, unnumbered checklist, cover repro.
1957
George Bellows: A Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., January-February 1957, no. 46, repro.
Paintings by George Bellows, Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio, March-April 1957, no. 49.
1965
The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.
Bibliography
1929
Bellows, Emma Louise Story. The Paintings of George Bellows. New York, 1929: 102.
1965
Paintings other than French in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 51, repro.
Morgan, Charles H. George Bellows. Painter of America. New York, 1965: 238.
1970
American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 16, repro.
1973
Young, Mahonri Sharp. The Eight. New York, 1973: 44, color pl. 55.
1974
Gerdts, William H. The Great American Nude: A History in Art. New York, 1974: 162.
1980
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 27, repro.
1981
Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: repro. 203, 205.
1992
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 31, repro.
2009
Peck, Glenn C. George Bellows' Catalogue Raisonné. H.V. Allison & Co., 2009. Online resource, URL: http://www.hvallison.com. Accessed 16 August 2016.
Inscriptions
by Emma S. Bellows, lower left: Geo. Bellows / E. S. B.[1]
Wikidata ID
Q20192309