By his own account, George Bellows (1882–1925) "arose surrounded by Methodists and Republicans" in Columbus, Ohio. Bellows played semipro baseball while attending Ohio State, but in 1904 he left both behind—"My brains were as innocent as college could make them"—and moved to New York to become an illustrator. He never made it to Europe to study the old masters, but absorbed their power through visits to the Metropolitan Museum and from his mentor Robert Henri, a leader of the Ashcan School, which was notorious for gritty, street-level... More >>>