Seated Boy

c. 1914

Seated Boy, c. 1914. George Bellows (American, 1882–1925). Black crayon; sheet: 25.4 x 20.5 cm (10 x 8 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. 1950.452 The seated youth in this drawing was probably made as a study for one of the many young boys in George Bellows’s lithographs Splinter Beach and River-Front or their related paintings. The inscription “raft” below the figure suggests that the pose was intended for the large raft in the River-Front composition, although a pose with greater similarity appears on the shoreline in the same print. Bellows’s quick sketch captures the wiry, perhaps undernourished physique and the darting eyes of the young man. Bellows made several compositions of boys swimming and lounging on the banks of the East River in New York City, based on studies such as this one.