1921
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
The Holdup, first state is a 1921 by George Bellows, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A man in a top hat and fancy vest is getting robbed at gunpoint on a dark street. Two thieves loom behind him—one with a tiny pistol, the other half-hidden in shadow. Bellows turns a crime into a cartoon. The victim looks more annoyed than scared, and the thieves seem like they’re playing roles in a play. The scene feels like a joke, not a real holdup. It’s the kind of exaggerated moment you’d see in old political cartoons. If you like this mix of humor and crime, look up the technique called impasto.
When the New York Times reviewed this work by George Bellows in 1921, it described it as a “subject interpreted in the spirit of Dickens. With a hint of melodrama, a hint of comedy, and a pinch of realism.” Bellows cast the episode as humorous; a gentleman in a fancy waistcoat and top hat is jumped by a thief with a small handgun and an accomplice emerging from the shadows behind. For such caricatured encounters, Bellows may have looked to the long history of political satire in the popular press. This is the first of two states, or versions, that Bellows made of this print.
Their hats—a top hat, and a flat cap, or newsboy—help to distinguish the high society and working-class status of the two main characters in this print.
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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