Lithograph on thin, cream wove paper, 1917. 485x387 mm; 19x15 1/4 inches, full margins. Edition of 54. Signed, titled and inscribed "No. 54" in pencil, lower margin. A superb, well-inked impression with all the tonal nuances distinct.
According to Bellows, the scene is "under the elevated, lower east side in mid-summer." Bellows' idea for this lithograph dates back to preliminary drawings executed in 1913-14. One, entitled I was Beatin' 'is Face, crayon, ink and pencil, 1913, now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, shows a much grittier, slum-like city view, which has been idealized in the lithograph, with a policeman restraining a young street urchin. Antoher drawing, Pinched (I Was Punchin' His Face), crayon, ink and pencil, 1914, now in the Wiggins Collection, Boston Public Library, focuses its attention on the two glamorous women in the foreground, much like in the lithograph. In both drawings, the policeman restraining the street urchin at the center is replaced by a woman scolding the boy in the lithograph version of the scene. Mason 47.
