George Bellows at the National Gallery

The National Gallery of Art’s large exhibition devoted to the work of painter George Bellows feels like pieces of a fascinating, imperfect puzzle.

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George Bellows's paintings from World War I, large-scale works that depict German atrocities, strive for the visceral power of Francisco de Goya's "Disasters of War," but they seem to be more about sadism than barbarity. "The Germans Arrive" (1918) shows a shirtless boy with his hands cut off by thuggish soldiers.

Gift of Ian and Annette Cumming; Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington /

"The Big Dory," an oil on panel, was painted in 1913, a year critics note as a turning point in Bellows's career. The legendary Armory Show dazzled New York that year with an encyclopedic list of contemporary French and European art. After that, Bellows turned to more traditional methods.

Courtesy New Britain Museum of American Art, Harriet Russell Stanley Fund

"Blackhead and Sea," a 1913 oil on panel.

Private collection; Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

The exhibit includes a selection of Bellows's portraits, which capture the claustrophobia of his sitters' encounter with the artist. "Margarite" was painted in 1919.

Private collection; Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

1918's "Return of the Useless" is another of Bellows's wartime depictions.

Photography by Douglas Dalton; Courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art,

"Billy Sunday," a 1923 lithograph, depicts the baseball player-turned-evangelist.

Collection of Max and Heidi Berry; National Gallery of Art, Washington

The artist depicted himself four years before his death in "Self-Portrait," a 1921 lithograph.

Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington; Collection of Max and Heidi Berry

Bellows's paintings of boxers in the throes of combat, including the 1909 "Stag at Sharkey's," are among his most well-known and most modernist in tone.

Courtesy Cleveland Museum of Art, Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection

"Madeline Davis," a 1914 portrait.

Courtesy Lowell and Sandra Mintz; National Gallery of Art

"Forth and Back," a sea scene from 1913.

Private collection; Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

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