GEORGE BELLOWS, Jersey Woods

Edward R. Keefe (the artist's roommate), New York, 1909
Estate of Edward R. Keefe, New London, Connecticut (sold: Adam A. Wechsler & Son, Washington, DC)
Julius and Ann Kaplan, 1973
Berry-Hill Galleries, New York
Private Collection, La Jolla, California
Acquired by the present owner from the above

New York, Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., George Bellows, December 1993-January 1994
New York, Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., Reflections on Snow: Winter Landscapes by American Artists 1880-1925, February-April 1994
West Palm Beach, Florida, Norton Museum of Art; Newark, New Jersey, Newark Museum of Art; Columbus, Ohio, Columbus Museum of Art, George Bellows: Love of Winter, December 1997-May 1998, no. 20, p. 45, illustrated in color p. 83

Between 1907 and 1915 George Bellows painted more winter scenes than at any other time in his career. Inspired by many locations in and around New York Bellows considered these paintings central to the development of his use of color, brushwork and composition. He wrote in 1914, “There has been none of my favorite snow. I must paint the snow at least once a year” (John Wilmerding, George Bellows: Love of Winter, West Palm Beach, Florida, 1997). There are winter landscapes depicting the Hudson River and Riverside Park with a view of the Palisades in the distance, winter scenes highlighting the bridges spanning the East River, paintings of the bustling docks of New York harbor in ice and snow and snow-blanketed New York city street scenes. Jersey Woods belongs to a small group of landscapes painted in and around Zion, New Jersey in the winter of 1909. In the present painting Bellows uses strong diagonal lines to establish a deep receding path which leads back to an open vista of blue-white snow covered hills, his palette knife creating thick swaths of snow and patches of brown mud as bold vertical brushstrokes convey the starkness of the spare winter trees.