Henry KoernerThe Pigeons
Art Bridges Collection
George Wesley BellowsEvening Swell
About
Evening Swell depicts Mohegan Island off the coast of Maine, where Bellows spent several summers, beginning in 1911. As the artist observed the ever-moving sea crashing against unchanging cliffs, he understood that the island was both savage and tranquil.
“The island is endless in its wonderful variety,” he wrote. “It’s possessed of enough beauty to supply a continent.”
That beauty is animated in the expressive brushwork of this painting. The artist’s bold, modern technique especially evokes a sense of texture in the depiction of rocks and ocean.
Like many writers and painters of the time, Bellows regarded the sea as a metaphor for the mysteries beyond death. Evening Swell’s somber twilight scene of fishermen dwarfed before the towering bluff and vast ocean indeed suggests the struggle of men against nature, and ultimately, their own mortality.
Artist
George Wesley Bellows
Dimensions
30 × 38 in. (76.2 × 96.5 cm) Framed: 38 in. × 46 in. × 1 1/2 in.
Credit Line
Art Bridges
Date
1911
Medium
Oil on canvas
Object Number
AB.2019.7
Signed
l.l.: Geo. Bellows / E.S.B.
Inscriptions
verso, on stretcher: EVENING SWELL
Provenance
Estate of the Artist, 1925; to Emma Story Bellows [1884-1959] (Artist’s wife); to Estate of Emma Story Bellows, 1959; (H.V. Allison & Co., New York, NY); Charles H. Morgan, Amherst, MA, 1964; (H.V. Allison & Co. New York, NY); (Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., New York, NY, 1985); Private Collection, MA, 1993; (Sotheby’s, New York, NY), May 22, 2002, lot 61; to Private Collection, 2002; (Christie’s, New York, NY), December 5, 2013, lot 31; to Private Collection, New York, 2013; to (Christie’s Private Sales, London, England); purchased by Art Bridges, TX, 2019
