George Wesley Bellows (1882-1925)

George Bellows’ most accomplished paintings from Monhegan Island, Maine, are meditations on the relationship between man and nature, while being charged expressions that evidence his abilities as a painter. Painted in 1911 during his first visit to Maine, the same year he completed Evening Swell (1911, Private Collection), Harbor of Monhegan, Fish Boats presents a daunting scene that conveys the raw power of nature and Bellows' immediate, visceral response to the island's rugged beauty. Bellows' month-long visit to Maine at this time reinvigorated him and was the catalyst for a creative outpouring, starting with a group of small panels, a series of plein air paintings, which he later used as the basis for larger works completed in his studio. Harbor of Monhegan, Fish Boats is a small, yet powerful, homage to the unique character of Monhegan and its inhabitants, in which the act of painting is as much a subject as the fishermen and the landscape.