George Bellows painted many busy, emotional New York scenes in the early 20th century. “The Lone Tenement,” from 1909, depicts a raw city and its cast-off residents.
“George Bellows was a poet of the city, an artist who loved New York as much as Monet loved his garden or Bierstadt loved the Rocky Mountains,” states Artcyclopedia.com.
“There are so many things to look at in this picture that Bellows hardly knows where to direct our attention: sunlight randomly glinting on a window, transients huddled around a fire, a horse-drawn carriage, a ship belching steam on the East River, and in the center a lonely building withering in the shadow of the then-brand-new Queensboro Bridge.”
Tags: 59th Street Bridge, East River paintings, George Bellows, New York art in the 20th century, New York City in 1909, New York City painters, New York City paintings, Queensboro Bridge, The Lone Tenement
Ephemeral New York 
May 27, 2011 at 7:37 pm |
i like bellows pretty well but i’d never seen that one. great find.
May 28, 2011 at 2:14 am |
It’s new to me too. I love the sense of New York on the margins–a tenement on the edge, and people on the edge as well.
May 28, 2011 at 2:39 pm |
But where can you see that now, certainly not Manhattan? The rich have taken over the poor neighborhoods that once were and made looking and living as the poor once did, turning it chic and stylish, a fashion of the times. Manhattan Noir is all cleaned up and instead should be called Manhattan Blah!
June 2, 2011 at 11:15 am |
Beautiful painting, thanks!
November 15, 2011 at 4:00 am |
[…] also revealed a more desolate side to the city, like this raw portrait of a single tenement by the East River. Share this:TwitterLike this:LikeBe the first to like this […]
April 6, 2012 at 1:12 am |
One of my favorites…nobody did NY better than George Bellows…he died young, so these treasures are few and far between. I have loved this one for a long time. It sings to the NYC of my youth, 1950s though 1980s when the lower west side started the changes….
July 30, 2012 at 3:25 am |
[…] Painter George Bellows chronicled many of New York’s slum streets and tenements. […]
July 29, 2013 at 2:53 am |
[…] sense; this was once a neighborhood of belching factories on the East River and the houses of people who worked in […]
September 28, 2015 at 6:50 am |
[…] seems to come from the urban realists who made a name for themselves in the early 1900s, such as George Bellows and George […]
November 9, 2015 at 2:52 pm |
Does anyone know where I can find a map of the land where New York Hospital is now? My dad was born there in 1898.
October 17, 2016 at 6:09 am |
[…] 1909 “Lone Tenement” (at left) shows a deserted brick walkup in the shadows under the then-new Queensboro Bridge, a […]