George Bellows Symposium: The Ashcan Goes to War: Bellows, Belligerence, and the Rape of Belgium

November 2012 - David Lubin, Charlotte C. Weber Professor of Art, Wake Forest University. When George Bellows died at the age of forty-two in 1925, he was hailed as one of the greatest artists America had yet produced. The exhibition George Bellows, on view at the National Gallery of Art from June 10 to October 8, 2012, provides the most complete account of his achievements to date. Bellows was a leading figure in the generation of artists who negotiated the transition from the Victorian to the early modern era in American culture. In this public symposium, held in conjunction with the exhibition on October 5-6, 2012, and coordinated with the Columbus Museum of Art, curators and scholars examine the remarkable scope of Bellows' career and assess his contributions to the first wave of twentieth-century American modernism.