Harbor of Monhegan, Fish Boats

George Bellows’ most accomplished paintings from Monhegan Island, Maine, are meditations on the relationship between man and nature, while being charged expressions that evidence his abilities as a painter. Painted in 1911 during his first visit to Maine, the same year he completed Evening Swell (1911, Private Collection), Harbor of Monhegan, Fish Boats presents a daunting scene that conveys the raw power of nature and Bellows' immediate, visceral response to the island's rugged beauty. Bellows' month-long visit to Maine at this time reinvigorated him and was the catalyst for a creative outpouring, starting with a group of small panels, a series of plein air paintings, which he later used as the basis for larger works completed in his studio. Harbor of Monhegan, Fish Boats is a small, yet powerful, homage to the unique character of Monhegan and its inhabitants, in which the act of painting is as much a subject as the fishermen and the landscape.