1921
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Self-Portrait is a 1921 by George Bellows, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
Here’s George Bellows looking right at you—pencil in one hand, cigarette in the other, eyes locked on his own reflection in a wavy mirror. The lines are rough, like he drew it fast, but the face feels alive. He’s showing us how the picture was made: the mirror, the stone he drew on, even the bow tie he wore every day. It’s not just a selfie—it’s a peek at the work behind the work. If you like this raw, honest style, check out impasto—thick paint that makes brushstrokes jump off the canvas.
Bellows’s Self-Portrait wittily presents himself in the very act of creating it. Reflected in a scallop-framed mirror, the artist intently studies his likeness while recording it on the thick lithographic stone that would be prepared and inked to make this print. He sports the bow tie often worn during this period of his career, and a cigarette dangles from his free hand. Bellows frequently attempted to break his smoking habit, writing on one occasion to a friend, “. . . all winter I have been making evasive gestures at cigarettes usually with the left hand and lighting them with the right.”
George Bellows attended the Ohio State University and the year that this self-portrait was made marked the school's only loss in football to another team from the state of Ohio.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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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