An American Experiment: George Bellows and the Ashcan Painters, National Gallery | reviews, news & interviews
An American Experiment: George Bellows and the Ashcan Painters, National Gallery
An American Experiment: George Bellows and the Ashcan Painters, National Gallery
The Ashcan school comes out of the bin to thrill and excite
Tuesday, 01 March 2011
George Bellows, 'Excavation at Night' (1908)Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas
The National Gallery has done it again: a small but perfectly formed exhibition in their little Room 1, now a by-word for intelligent show-making. Something new, something revelatory, something profoundly beautiful – what more can the gallery-goer ask? The Ashcan School is not widely known outside the USA, and I can think of no better introduction than this dozen-canvas-strong showing of some of the highlights (and, it must be admitted, a couple of low-lights as well).
The National Gallery has done it again: a small but perfectly formed exhibition in their little Room 1, now a by-word for intelligent show-making. Something new, something revelatory, something profoundly beautiful – what more can the gallery-goer ask? The Ashcan School is not widely known outside the USA, and I can think of no better introduction than this dozen-canvas-strong showing of some of the highlights (and, it must be admitted, a couple of low-lights as well).
They painted the world they saw about them, in its brutality as well as in its beauty
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