1924
American Paintings and Sculpture
Although nine-year-old Jean Bellows’s determined expression suggests otherwise, she fondly remembered posing for her father, George Bellows, on a hot July day at the family’s summer home in Woodstock, New York. Bellows amused her by playing Victrola records and reading Black Beauty. "Posing for ‘Lady Jean’ was quite easy," she later wrote. "It took him only five days to complete. When I became weary of standing, he would let me sit, and he paid me regular model’s wages for my time." As the study for the work (1999.80.1) shows, Bellows based the composition on the newly popular theory of Dynamic Symmetry, an intricate geometrical system of interlocking angles and planes, derived from an ancient theory of design that was attracting a number of avant-garde American artists and architects.
- Medium
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Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
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72 × 36 in. (182.9 × 91.4 cm)
- Credit Line
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Bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark, B.A. 1903
- Accession Number
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1961.18.7
- Geography
- Culture
- Period
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20th century
- Classification
- Disclaimer
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Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.
Provenance
Provenance
George Wesley Bellows (1882–1925), New York, 1924–25; by inheritance to Emma S. Bellows (1884–1959), New York, 1925; sold to Frank K. M. Rehn Gallery, New York; sold to Stephen Carlton Clark (1882–1960), New York, 1928; bequeathed to Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 1961Bibliography
- Charles Brock, George Bellows, exh. cat. (Munich: National Gallery of Art, 2012), 290, fig. 145
- Mary Sayre Haverstock, George Bellows: An Artist in Action (New York: Merrell Publishing Ltd., 2007), 147, 149, ill.
- Art for Yale: Collecting for a New Century, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2007), 370, fig. 1
- Michael Conforti et al., The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings, exh. cat. (Williamstown, Mass.: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2006), 138–39, 316, 318, fig. 116
- Michael Quick et al., The Paintings of George Bellows, exh. cat. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992), 87–89, fig. 52
- Mahonri Sharp Young, The Paintings of George Bellows (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1973), 146
- Donald Braider, George Bellows and the Ashcan School of Painting, 1 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1971), 139
- Charles Hill Morgan, George Bellows: Painter of America (New York: Reynal, 1965), 276
- Emily Genauer, "She Was Lady Jean: George Bellows' Daughter Is Grown Up Now, But She Still Resembles the Famous Painting," Los Angeles Times (November 18, 1956), 36, ill.
- Eugene Edward Speicher and Carl Oscar Schniewind, George Bellows: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, January 31 through March 10, 1946, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1946), 25, fig. 57
- "The Portraits of George Bellows' Daughter," Life 11 (October 6, 1941), 76, ill.
- ""Lady Jean" Has a 6th Portrait, This Time by Eugene Speicher," New York Herald Tribune (March 4, 1941), 23
- Marjorie Murphy, "George Bellows Paints Jean: Artists' Children Series," The Christian Science Monitor (August 8, 1940), 11, ill.
- Harry B. Wehle, "The George Bellows Exhibition," Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 20, no. 10 (October 1925), 234
- ""Lady Jean," George Bellows' Portrait of his Daughter," Current Opinion (March 1, 1925), 327, ill.
- "Lady Jean," Vanity Fair 23, no. 6 (February 1925), 31, ill.
- "Art: Exhibitions of the Week," New York Times (February 8, 1925), 10
Object copyright
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