Existing comment:
George Bellows
Forty-two Kids, 1907
Forty-two Kids depicts a band of lanky boys frolicking on the sunny docks of New York City's East River in August 1907. In turn-of-the-century slang, "kids" referred to street-wise tenements dwellers, frequently the offspring of working-class immigrants, who lived in Lower East Side neighborhoods.
When it was exhibited in New York in 1908, the painting was derided due to its adventurous subject and exuberant style; one critic called it a "tour de force of absurdity." However, Forty-two Kids was purchased less than a year after its completion, marking the second sale of Bellows' career and his first to a private collector. |