George Bellows almost didn’t make it into this world.

His parents were well over the fertility hill; his mom was 40 and his dad was 50 when they decided that it was now or never to fulfill their biological needs to reproduce. And boy are we glad they did, for their child would grow up to become one of the most acclaimed American artists of his generation, or so the Columbus Museum of Art has dubbed him.

Though we at Sartle are smitten with Bellow’s life choice to become an artist, it would seem that it was at the odds of pretty much everyone else’s expectations of him. His mother wanted him to grow up to be Methodist Bishop and subsequently forbade him from going outside on Sundays so that she could read the bible out loud to him. This clearly backfired. Then, later in life, Bellows played on his college baseball team and was offered a professional baseball contract, but he again decided to ignore everyone’s suggestions, moved to New York, and became an artist instead. 

Moving from the mellow life of rural Ohio to the bustling streets of New York City invigorated Bellows with a rush of creative energy that changed the direction of his artistic career. Bellows began painting scenes from everyday life in this fast-paced city. Though he loved life as a bohemian art, his infatuation with athletics never died.

Artists tend to paint what they know, which is likely why Bellows had a real propensity to capturing the ferocity involved in beating the s**t out of each other. As a child, many of his classmates teased him for being a sissy and quickly Bellows learned to respond to their ridicule with his fists. This desire to overpower bullies with sheer strength is probably what lead Bellows down that athletic jock path to begin with.

Bellows was a tough guy but no matter how rugged you are, the most insignificant things can swiftly bring the end of life. While his life was filled with dramatic testosterone-drenched fist fights, it was his poor little appendix that knocked him out.