Sunday 1897

Bellows, George, 1882-1925 · 1921

Memories of a Sunday morning in Columbus, Ohio, 1897. George, aged fifteen, is uncomfortably seated next to his father, who is driving. His mother is on the rear seat; two friends are being given a lift. (Bellows) / Sunday, 1897. Much against his will the artist, as a young man, being called to church in the family rig. The Reverend Purley A. Baker, first president of the Anti-saloon League, is saluted in passing -GB, in FK. "Sunday 1897" and "Sixteen East Gay Street" (M. 183) are the two lithographs that record Bellows' "remembrance of things past." Both reveal the artist's warm regard for his traditional middle-class upbringing in the Midwest at the end of the nineteenth century. Much can be read into this view of the boy who was to become the artist, humanitarian, and devoted family man--a loving and loved human being. (Mason)