1916
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Dominant colour
Preliminaries is a 1916 ink by George Bellows, held at National Gallery of Art.
This black-and-white scene shows a crowd of people standing close together, watching something outside. Most wear hats—men in top hats, women in smaller ones. One woman in the center stands out with her arms crossed and a bare shoulder. The background looks like a track or field, with a fence and lights, but it’s dark and hard to make out details. The artist used loose, sketchy lines to show the crowd’s energy, almost like a quick sketch. The focus isn’t on one person but the whole group, making it feel alive and busy. Look up lithography to see how artists like Bellows made prints like this.
George Wesley Bellows (August 12 or August 19, 1882 – January 8, 1925) was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City.
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