The Lone Tenement
1909
Painter, American, 1882 - 1925

Like many American artists of his generation, George Bellows was interested in the various urban construction projects that transformed New York City into an ultramodern metropolis. By the time he commenced work on The Lone Tenement in December 1909, he had completed four paintings devoted to the excavation site of the new Pennsylvania Station, culminating in the Gallery’s Blue Morning (painted in March 1909). The Lone Tenement represents the nearly complete Blackwell’s Island Bridge (now known as the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge or 59th Street Bridge), which passes over Blackwell’s Island (now known as Roosevelt Island), linking midtown Manhattan with the borough of Queens. Although the bridge was an impressive engineering feat and a symbol of progress, Bellows chose to focus instead on an abandoned, old tenement building and a group of desultory figures warming themselves by a fire. Such tenement buildings were associated with a host of social ills because of their impoverished and often immigrant residents. Bellows has imbued the composition with a sense of eerie wistfulness, recording the precarious positions of those who were being displaced to make way for the future.
The impact of the painting is strengthened by the artist’s technical mastery. Paint is applied in variety of ways, from passages of thick impasto just to the left of the tenement building to a series of quick calligraphic marks used to describe a group of figures milling outside the building to the right. Bellows’s bold, expressive palette of oranges, golds, and violets, especially evident in the upper left quadrant of the canvas, is also distinctive.

East Building Ground Level, Gallery 106-C
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 91.8 x 122.3 cm (36 1/8 x 48 1/8 in.)
framed: 123.2 x 153.4 x 12.7 cm (48 1/2 x 60 3/8 x 5 in.) -
Accession
1963.10.83
More About this Artwork
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
The artist [1882-1925]; by inheritance to his wife, Emma S. Bellows [1884-1959]; purchased 3 February 1945 through (H.V. Allison & Co., New York) by Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1911
Collection of Pictures and Sculpture in the Pavilion of the United States of America, Roman Art Exposition, Rome, 1911, no. 135.
[George Bellows Exhibition], Madison Gallery, New York, 1911.
1912
One Hundred and Seventh Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1912, no. 57.
1914
The MacDowell Club, New York, 1914 [according to the artist's Record Book].
1915
Department of Fine Arts, Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto, 1915, no. 82.
1931
Important Paintings by George Wesley Bellows, Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio, 1931, no. 268.
1944
Paintings by George Bellows, H.V. Allison & Co., New York, 1944, unnumbered checklist.
1946
George Bellows: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, Art Institute of Chicago, 1946, no. 8, repro.
1957
George Bellows: A Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Art, January-February 1957, no. 15, repro.
Paintings by George Bellows, Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio, March-April 1957, no. 12.
1965
The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.
2012
George Bellows, National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2012-2013, pl. 31 (shown only in Washington).
Bibliography
1929
Bellows, Emma Louise Story. The Paintings of George Bellows. New York, 1929: repro. 17.
1962
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 174, color repro.
1965
Paintings other than French in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 49, repro.
Morgan, Charles H. George Bellows. Painter of America. New York, 1965: 102, repro. 318.
1969
Young, Mahonri Sharp. "George Bellows: Master of the Prize Fight." Apollo 89 (February 1969): 135, repro.
1970
American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 16, repro.
1971
Braider, Donald. George Bellows and the Ashcan School of Painting. New York, 1971: 54, 67.
Baigell, Matthew. A History of American Painting. New York, 1971: 184, repro.
1973
Young, Mahonri Sharp. The Eight. New York, 1973: 44, color pl. 12.
1980
Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 17, 146, repro.
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. 201, 202, 205.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 572, no. 871, color repro.
1988
Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 168, repro.
1990
Kelly, Frankin. "George Bellows' Shore House." Studies in the History of Art 37 (1990): 131, repro. no. 19.
1992
Timeline: A Publication of the Ohio Historical Society. October-December 1992:19, repro.
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 29, repro.
1995
Oates, Joyce Carol. George Bellows: American Artist. Hopewell, New Jersey, 1995: repro.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 404, no. 332, color repro.
2007
Haverstock, Mary Sayre. George Bellows: An Artist in Action. Columbus, Ohio, 2007: 56, color 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.
2012
Brock, Charles, et al. George Bellows. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2012-2013. Washington and New York, 2012: 9, 26, 94, 108, 109, 112, 299, pl. 31.
2013
Corbett, David Peters. The American Experiment: George Bellows and the Ashcan Painters, with Katherine Bourguignon and Christopher Riopelle. London, 2013: 28-31, 46, color fig. 12.
2015
Wolner, Edward W. "George Bellows, Georg Simmel, and Modernizing New York." American Art 29, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 119.
2016
National Gallery of Art. Highlights from the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Washington, 2016: 274-275, repro.
Inscriptions
lower left: Geo Bellows
Wikidata ID
Q20191257