The Street
1917
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1917
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
You see a crowded city street under an elevated train track, packed with people in dark clothes—except two women in bright white dresses up front. Bellows painted this in 1917, when New York’s Lower East Side was jammed with tenements. The people here aren’t posing; they’re living—kids playing, neighbors gossiping, a woman scolding a barefoot boy. The train looms overhead, making the scene feel even tighter. To see how other artists showed city life, look up the subject: america.
