George Wesley Bellows was one of a group of artists of the late 19th and early 20th century that belonged to the Ashcan School (or Ash Can School), an American artistic movement that captured daily life in New York City’s less affluent areas. The movement spread to other cities, Philadelphia being one of them.

The group was informal and Its members were not necessarily political in purpose, actually some were apolitical. Their art was meant to capture the ordinary lives of ordinary people, who lived in ordinary areas of the city.

George Wesley Bellows lived across the street from a private athletic club that offered members its facilities to conduct boxing matches. At times temporary club memberships were granted non-members who wanted to participate in a match. Non-members who boxed were called “stags.”

Bellows created a boxing series of paintings. One piece was painted of a “stag” fighting in a match in August 1909, depicted from the spectator’s perspective. His brush strokes are purposely intended to blur the image to portray motion of the boxers. Bellows’ comment about his painting Stag at Sharkey’s was simply:

 “I don’t know anything about boxing, I’m just painting two men trying to kill each other.”

Other paintings by Bellows . . .

Artists of the Ashcan School created wonderful paintings of ordinary life in New York City. A few examples are included to appreciate the Ashcan genre.

Ashcan artist do not have great renown. They were, however, talented American artists intent on future Americans seeing and appreciating life in their century.