BELLOWS, George

American (1882 – 1925)

Billy Sunday, 1923

Mason 143; Myers/Ayres p.50-51. Lithograph on china paper, wide margins. Edition of 60. Signed, titled, and inscribed “Geo Bellows” and “Bolton Brown Imp.”

9 x 16 ¼ inches  |  22.9 x 41.3 cm

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George Bellows wrote about the itinerant preacher: “I like to paint Billy Sunday, not because I like him, but because I want to show the world what I do think of him. Do you know, I believe Billy Sunday is the worst thing that ever happened to America?….He is against freedom, he wants a religious autocracy, he is such a revolutionary that he makes me an anarchist…”  The fiery preacher shouted during his sermon, “I’m against booze and I’m against card parties because the devil’s in favor of them… And let me tell you…. I’m against the rotten, licentious dances that have assassinated the characters of more girls than anything else in the world… It’s the devil’s principal part to wreck women. I’ll rip them to hell and breakfast and back again.”

Bellows, along with John Reed, travelled to Philadelphia to witness the orator in action, where he was drawing crowds in the thousands to an enormous circus tent.