The Pool Player

George Wesley Bellows

This impression has the original label from Bellows' original dealers, "H.V. Allison & Co., Inc / 32 East 57th Street / New York 22, N.Y."

"The Pool Player" was the third of four lithographs Bellows did in 1921 with printer Bolton Brown that featured billiard and pool players.

Jane Myers and Linda Ayres, in their book 'George Bellows: The Artist and His Lithographs 1916-1924', published by the Amon Carter Museum in 1988, comment about this work on pages 81-87:

"Bellows emphasized the strategy of a game he frequently played with (Robert) Henri. Although their identities are no longer known, the characters in these prints were drawn from Bellows' own circle of friends. Bellows himself appears in the 'Pool Player', in his shirt sleeves, the single overhead light recalling the male-dominated realm of the boxing prints."

Another figure stands to the right, in the dark, his right hand holding his cue as he watches to see the results of his opponent's shot. Bellows "tilts" the pool table plane in order for the viewer to see the set-up of the approach.