Extra! Extra! Classical WETA Tonight Tries To Sneak In Its American Classical Music Quota For The Rest Of Year Without Pan Cogito Noticing!

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10:21 pm
Edward MacDowell
Piano Concerto #1
Thomas Tirino (piano) | Bulgarian Radio Symphony Orchestra | Vassil Kazandjiev (conductor)
Centaur 2149

11:19 pm
Arthur Foote
Piano Quartet
James Barbagallo (piano) | Da Vinci Quartet
Naxos 559.014

Classical WETA, public radio in the Nation's Capital

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Header:

George Bellows
American, 1882 - 1925
Both Members of This Club, 1909
Chester Dale Collection
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
1944.13.1

"A robust and vigorous man, George Bellows played semiprofessional baseball before moving to New York City to study art under Robert Henri. There, Bellows found that corruption had made public boxing illegal. Private sport clubs managed to circumvent the law, but they also barred the fighters, who were deemed socially unacceptable, from joining. The title of Both Members of This Club refers to the practice of granting “membership” to boxers only for the duration of their bouts. Bellows indicated his low opinion of the elitist crowd by converting them into grotesque caricatures roaring approval of the bloodshed. Creating a sense of immediacy, three rows of spectators block off our view, and the ringside ropes loom overhead.

The location is Tom Sharkey's Athletic Club. (Sharkey's is also the setting for Bellows' Club Night of 1907 in the National Gallery, the first of his six oil paintings of boxing matches.) The black contestant is Joe Gans, lightweight champion for eight years. Gans' famous “right punch after blocking a lead” may have led Bellows to record that maneuver for its own sake."

Text and image credit: Copyright © 2009 National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

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American Realist Painting of the Early 20th Century in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.