Autumn Flame

1913

George Bellows is one of America's pre-eminent modern artists, known primarily for his realist paintings of urban life. In this autumn scene painted on Monhegan Island, Maine, Bellows demonstrates his spontaneous approach, applying paint in slashing, angular strokes. Most likely influenced by the European modernists in the 1913 Armory Show, which he had helped to organize, Bellows began using color more boldly and expressively. Bellows' biographer, Charles Morgan, wrote: "The hot palette of the Post-Impressionists, Gauguin and Van Gogh, the tropical chromisms of the Fauves, never shone more brilliantly than in Autumn Flame."

Monhegan Island, Maine

Oil on canvas

frame: 21 1/4 in x 26 in; canvas: 16 in x 22 in

Bruce Howe

1991.014.008