Club Night

1907

George Bellows

Painter, American, 1882 - 1925

George Bellows

Attributed to

Two men wearing brief-like shorts, shoes, and boxing gloves curl toward each other as they grapple in the middle of a boxing ring in this horizontal painting. We look at the ring from across the heads of the crowd below and around us. The platform of the boxing ring comes about a quarter of the way up the canvas so the boxers themselves nearly brush the top edge of the composition. The boxer on our left has pale, peach skin and wears light blue shorts. He curves to his side as he dips his head and right shoulder toward us in a defensive position, arms shielding his face. To our right and in the center of the composition, the opponent has an olive-toned complextion. He wears dark shorts and is shown in mid-punch with his left leg raised to step forward. His back curves like a comma as his right arm comes forward with the punch. Bright light, like a spotlight, illuminates the men from our left so even the right sides of their bodies are lost in shadow. The crowd around us is backlit but one grinning man turns to look over his shoulder at or beyond us. The arena across the boxing ring is also plunged into deep shadow, so only the faces in the first few rows are visible before being swallowed in darkness. In fact, the top third of the canvas behind the boxers is black. The faces of the men in the crowd across from us are loosely painted, sometimes with only a few strokes to capture features. Individual features are mostly obscured but one face near the center, between the legs of the attacking boxer, is split wide in an exaggerated grin. That man wears a white tuxedo shirt and black jacket, and raises both hands, as if ready to light a cigar.

Media Options

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George Bellows’s paintings devoted to boxing were among the most popular pictures he produced during his lifetime and remain so today. Executed in August and September 1907, Club Night is the first of three similar boxing subjects that Bellows painted early in his career, from 1907 to 1909. Club Night represents a fight at an athletic club in New York City owned by Tom Sharkey, a former heavyweight champion. The enactment of the Lewis Law in 1900 prohibited boxing in New York State, but Sharkey and others circumvented the law by staging bouts in their private “clubs,” where attendees paid membership dues instead of admission fees to a particular fight, allowing them to legally gamble on matches. The public’s generally positive response to this controversial subject reflected an ambivalent attitude toward the sport. Some regarded boxing as a savage, brutal pastime, but many thought it a natural manifestation of masculinity. When criticized for not accurately representing certain technical aspects of the sport, Bellows responded, “I don’t know anything about boxing. I’m just painting two men trying to kill each other.”

In addition to precedents in the work of the American realist Thomas Eakins, Bellows’s boxing paintings paid homage to the European painters recommended to him by his teacher and mentor, Robert Henri. Whereas Bellows later drew inspiration from the rich black tonalities and biting satire of the 17th-century Spanish master Francisco de Goya for Both Members of This Club, the smoky, atmospheric haze that envelops the scene in Club Night and Bellows’s painterly technique and rendering of the crowd owes much to the great 19th-century French painter and caricaturist, Honoré Daumier.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    John Hay Whitney Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 109.2 x 135 cm (43 x 53 1/8 in.)
    framed: 127.6 x 153 x 9.5 cm (50 1/4 x 60 1/4 x 3 3/4 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1982.76.1

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Club Night, 1907

Video:  George Bellows and the Art of Boxing

In this video, Sharmbá Mitchell, former two-time Junior Welterweight Champion of the World, and Charles Brock, associate curator of American and British paintings at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, talk about four of the greatest sports paintings in American art by George Bellows (1882–1925).

This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

Scholarly Series:  American Paintings, 1900–1945

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(The Hackett Galleries, New York); purchased 1930[1] by John Hay Whitney [1904-1982], Manhasset, New York; deeded 1982 to the John Hay Whitney Charitable Trust, New York; gift 1982 to NGA.
[1] According to Whitney collection records, the painting was purchased in 1930, which was the year The Hackett Galleries printed their prospectus for the painting. The date given in the artist's record book, in an annotation by Emma Bellows, is 1931, and she writes that Whitney bought the painting "thru Helen Hackett Gallery." Copies of the Whitney records, the prospectus, and the page from the artist's record book are in NGA curatorial files. The Herald Tribune of 24 May 1931 announced: "'Club Night,' the subject in question, which has just been sold by the Hackett galleries to an unnamed collector, stands out among Bellows's works as one of the four most powerful subjects of its type." (Carlyle Burrows, "Pictures for the Road and a Bellows Canvas," Herald Tribune [24 May 1931]: repro.)

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1907

  • Winter Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, 1907-1908, no. 383, as A Stag at Sharkey's.

1908

  • One Hundred Third Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, January-February 1908, no. 251, as A Stag at Sharkey's.

  • Twelfth Annual Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, April-June 1908, no. 20, as A Stag at Sharkey's.

1909

  • Pen and Pencil Club, Columbus, Ohio, 1909, as A Stag at Sharkey's [according to the artist's Record Book].

  • Southern Hotel, Columbus, Ohio, 1909, as A Stag at Sharkey's [according to the artist's Record Book].

  • Cleveland Athletic Club, Ohio, 1909, as A Stag at Sharkey's [according to the artist's Record Book].[1]

  • Art Department, State Fair of Texas, Dallas, October 1909, no. 7, as A Stag at Sharkeys.

1915

  • Paintings by George Bellows, N.A., Gallery of Fine and Applied Arts, Los Angeles, 1915, possibly no. 16.

1925

  • Commemorative Exhibition by Members of the National Academy of Design (1825-1925), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Grand Central Art Galleries, New York, 1925-1926, no. 249, repro.

1934

  • Sport in Art from Ancient to Modern Times, for the Benefit of the Artists and Writers Dinner Club, The Junior League of the City of New York, 1934.

1957

  • George Bellows: A Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1957, no. 5, repro.

1958

  • The Museum and Its Friends: Twentieth-Century American Art from Collections of the Friends of the Whitney Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1958, no. 6, repro.

1959

  • The American Muse: Parallel Trends in Literature and Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1959, no. 14.

1960

  • The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Exhibition of Independent Artists in 1910, Delaware Art Center, Wilmington; Graham Gallery, New York, January-April 1960, no. 2.[2]

  • Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Collected by Yale Alumni: An Exhibition, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, May-June 1960, no. 131, repro.

1966

  • George Bellows: Paintings, Drawings, Lithographs, The Gallery of Modern Art, New York, 1966, no. 8 (of paintings list), repro.

1968

  • American Art from Alumni Collections, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, 1968, no. 143, repro.

1971

  • What is American in American Art, M. Knoedler and Co. [benefit exhibition for the Museum of American Folk Art], New York, 1971, no. 89, repro., as Club Night at Sharkey's.

1982

  • Bellows: The Boxing Pictures, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1982-1983, no. 1, fig. 25, pl. 7.

1983

  • The John Hay Whitney Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1983, no. 66, repro.

1984

  • The American Figure: Vanderlyn to Bellows, Mansfield Art Center, Ohio, 1984, no. 45, repro.

1986

  • Loan to display with the permanent collection, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., 1986-1987.

1992

  • The Paintings of George Bellows, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Columbus Museum of Art; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, 1992-1993, fig. 8 (shown only in New York, Columbus, and Fort Worth).

  • The Artist at Ringside, The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; The National Art Museum of Sport, Indianapolis, 1992, unnumbered checklist, repro. 27 (shown only in Youngstown).

1994

  • American Impression and Realism: The Painting of Modern Life, 1885-1915, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; The Denver Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1994-1995, no. 3, fig. 223.

1996

  • Visions of America: Urban Realism 1900-1945, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, 1996, no. 1, repro.

1998

  • Gifts to the Nation from Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998-1999, no catalogue.

1999

  • America: The New World in 19th-Century Painting, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, 1999, no. 135, repro.

2005

  • Moving Pictures: American Art and Early Film, 1880-1910, Grey Art Gallery & Study Center, New York University, New York; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., 2005-2007, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 175.

2007

  • Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artist's Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville; The New -York Historical Society; The Detroit institute of Arts, 2007-2008, no. 34, repro.

2009

  • American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2009-2010, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 174.

2012

  • George Bellows, National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2012- 2013, pl. 16.

2013

  • George Bellows and the American Experience, Columbus Museum of Art, 2013-2014, no catalogue.

2018

  • Es war einmal in Amerika: 300 Jahre US-Amerikanische Kunst [Once Upon a Time in America: Three Centuries of US-American Art], Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, 2018-2019., no. 81, repro.

Bibliography

1912

  • "George Bellows, An Artist with 'Red Blood.'" Current Literature 53, no. 3 (September 1912): 334, repro.

1928

  • Jackman, Rilla Evelyn. American Arts. Chicago, 1928: 282.

1929

  • Bellows, Emma Louise Story. The Paintings of George Bellows. New York, 1929: 7, repro.

1936

  • Salpeter, Harry. "George Bellows, Native." Esquire 5, no. 4 (April 1936): 137.

  • Barrows, Edward M. "George Bellows, Athlete." The North American Review 242, no. 2 (1 December 1936): 297.

1942

  • Boswell, Peyton, Jr. George Bellows. New York, 1942: 17, repro.

1965

  • Morgan, Charles H. George Bellows. Painter of America. New York, 1965: 9, 76–78, 89–90, 255, repro. 312.

1971

  • Braider, Donald. George Bellows and the Ashcan School of Painting. New York, 1971: 43, 45, 48, 132.

1982

  • Carmean, E.A., Jr., et al. Bellows: The Boxing Pictures. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1982: no. 1, fig. 25, pl. 7, 29-31, 73-74.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 572, no. 873, color repro.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 28, repro.

  • Doezema, Marianne. George Bellows and Urban America. New Haven and London, 1992: 83-89, fig. 33, color pl. 8.

  • Doezema, Marianne. "The New York City of George Bellows." Antiques 141, no. 3 (March 1992): 487, color pl. 10.

  • Quick, Michael, Jane Myers, Marianne Doezema, and Franklin Kelly. The Paintings of George Bellows. Exh. cat. Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Columbus (Ohio) Museum of Art; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, 1992-1993. New York, 1992: 13, 19, 21, 105-106, 107, 108, fig. 8.

1995

  • Oates, Joyce Carol. George Bellows: American Artist. Hopewell, New Jersey, 1995: 3-5.

2007

  • Haverstock, Mary Sayre. George Bellows: An Artist in Action. Columbus, Ohio, 2007: 37-38, color repro. 39.

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: 23, 39, 41, 71, 74, 77, 215, pl. 16.

Wikidata ID

Q20191079

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