Frankie, the Organ Boy

Artist George Wesley Bellows (American, 1882 - 1925)

Date1907

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 48 1/4 × 34 1/4 inches (122.56 × 87 cm)
Framed: 59 3/4 × 45 3/4 × 2 1/2 inches (151.77 × 116.21 × 6.35 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: acquired through the bequest of Ben and Clara Shlyen

Object numberF91-22

SignedSigned lower left: Geo Bellows

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

American Art

Terms

Exhibition History

George Bellows, H. V. Allison & Company, New York, May 8–29, 1968, no. 1.

George Bellows, H. V. Allison & Company, New York, May 5–23, 1970, no. 1.

George Wesley Bellows, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Mass., November 1–20, 1972, unnumbered.

Portland Museum of Art, Maine, extended loan, 1974–88.

Miami Collects: Selections from the Collections of Miami University Alumni, Faculty, and Staff, Miami University Art Museum, Oxford, Ohio, October 27–December 16, 1984, no. 7 (as Frankie the Organ Boy, New York).

George Bellows: An American Master, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., October 1–November 30, 1991, unnumbered.

The Paintings of George Bellows, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, February 16, 1992–May 9, 1993 (traveled), unnumbered.

Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Nelson-Atkins Museum Art, Kansas City, Mo.; Saint Louis Art Museum; and Toledo Museum of Art, October 8, 1995–September 22, 1996 (traveled), unnumbered.

George Bellows (1882–1925), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., June 10–October 8, 2012; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 14, 2012–February 18, 2013; Royal Academy of the Arts, London, March 16–June 9, 2013.

Gallery Label

In Frankie, the Organ Boy, George Bellows painted a young sitter who hailed from the sordid streets of lower Manhattan. Committed to portraying the dynamic and rough aspects of urban American life, the artist likely recruited Frankie from the neighborhood around Bellows' Broadway studio. Painted on a large scale and dressed in a suit, Frankie appears out of the inky-black background like a youthful, energetic monarch perched on a modest throne. Even so, his gangly awkwardness prevails. Bellows included a round, nickel-plated badge on his lapel, the sign of a youth who has a work permit, most likely selling newspapers, which was a common "profession" for working-class boys around the turn of the century.

Provenance

To estate of the artist; to his widow, Emma S. Bellows;

to estate of Emma S. Bellows;

to (H. V. Allison & Company, New York, 1941);

to Ellen and Chris Huntington, Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, 1974;

to (Sotheby’s, New York, 1 December 1988, lot 222);

to (Berry-Hill Galleries, New York, 1990);

to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., 1991.

Published References

Record Book A, Jean Bellows Booth, 37.

Charles H. Morgan, George Bellows: Painter of America (New York: Reynal & Company, 1965), 75.

“Exhibition at Allison Gallery,” Art News 67 (May 1968), 11.

H. V. Allison & Company, advertisement, Apollo 91 (May 1970), lxiv.

George Bellows, exh. cat. (New York: H. V. Allison & Company, 1970), unpaginated.

Donald Braider, George Bellows and the Ashcan School of Painting (Garden City, N.Y.: Double-day & Co., 1971), 42.

George Bellows, exh. cat. (Amherst, Mass.: Amherst College, 1972), unpaginated.

Miami Collects: Selections from the Collections of Miami University Alumni, Faculty, and Staff, exh. cat. (Oxford, Ohio: Miami University Art Museum, 1984), 6 (as Frankie the Organ Boy, New York).

Rebecca Zurier, “Hey Kids: Children in the Comics and the Art of George Bellows,” Print Collector’s Newsletter 18 (January– February 1988), 203 n26.

Rebecca Zurier, “Picturing the City: New York in the Press and the Art of the Ashcan School, 1890–1917,” Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1988, 306, fig. 118.

Sotheby’s, New York, December 1, 1988, lot 222.

American Paintings VI, 1990 (New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, 1990), 142–43.

“An American Portrait,” Kansas City Star, October 13, 1991, J1.

Janet Majure, “Nelson Acquires ‘Frankie’: George Bellows Masterpiece Is Focus of New Exhibition,” Kansas City Star, October 13, 1991, J8.

Henry Adams, “George Bellows: An American Master,” Calendar of Events (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), October 1991, 2, cover.

Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 5, 139–41.

Henry Adams, George Bellows: An American Master, exh. cat. (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 2, cover.

William Wilson, “Bellows’ One-Two Punch: Artist’s Duality on View in County Museum Retrospective,” Los Angeles Times, February 17, 1992, F7.

Marianne Doezema, George Bellows and Urban America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 12, 86, 131, 133, colorpl. 18.

Michael Quick et al., The Paintings of George Bellows, exh. cat. (Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum; New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992), 181, 185, 251.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collections. 6^th ed. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 228, 243.

Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 1933–1993 (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 109.

H. Barbara Weinberg, Doreen Bolger, and David Park Curry, American Impressionism and Realism: The Painting of Modern Life, 1885–1915, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994), 303.

Kathryn C. Johnson, ed., Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, exh. cat. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1995), 136.

Molly Suzanne Hutton, “The Ashcan City: Representational Strategies at the Turn of the Century,” Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2000, 7, 19–22, 24–29 (as Frankie), and 177.

Margaret C. Conrads, ed. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945 (Kansas City, Mo.: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 1: 29, 39-43 (repro.), 222, 2: 14-15 (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 174 (repro.).

Robert Burleigh, George Bellows: Painter with a Punch! (New York: Abrams, 2012) 16 (repro.).

Charle Brock et al., George Bellows, exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2012), 64 (repro.).

Linda, “Fine Arts Friday: George Bellows: An Ashcan Classicist,” Under the Gables, September 28, 2012, http://underthegables.blogspot.com/2012/09/fine-arts-friday-george-bellows-ashcan.html (repro.).

Patricia Leslie, “‘George Bellows’ tape is a treat at the National Gallery of Art,” Washington Speaks, October 1, 2012, http://washingtonspeaks.blogspot.com/2012/10/george-bellows-tape-is-treat-at.html (repro.).

Emily Leatha Everson Gleichenhaus, “Something Artist George Bellows Said…,” Sing Books with Emily, the Blog, November 8, 2012, https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/something-artists-george-bellows-said/ (repro.).

Jackson Lears, “George Bellows: New York knock-out,” RA Magazine, February 27, 2013, https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/george-bellows-new-york.

Fisun Güner, “George Bellows: Modern American Life, Royal Academy,” The Arts Desk, March 13, 2013, http://www.theartsdesk.com/visual-arts/george-bellows-modern-american-life-royal-academy.

“George Bellows at the RA,” SMaxted Reviews, April 24, 2013, https://smaxtedreviews.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/george-bellows-at-the-ra/ (repro.).

Ben Wiedel-Kaufmann, “George Bellows (1882-1925): Modern American Life,” Studio International, May 16, 2013, http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/george-bellows-1882-1925-modern-american-life.

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