Reducing Exercises (1916): Art, History and Details

Reducing Exercises (1916) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is George Bellows (American, 1882–1925).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Fueled by the advertising industry and the increasing popularity of movies, the ideal standard for women’s bodies began to evolve during the early 20th century, fostering a preference for more curvaceous profiles with thinner waists. Bellows’s Reducing Exercises presents a woman dutifully engaged in changing her physique while her male companion sleeps. When he first exhibited the print, the artist provided an accompanying quip: “Gymnastics before retiring are supposed to reduce the flesh. The husband is contented with his figure.”

Object facts

• Title: Reducing Exercises
• Date: 1916
• Creator attribution: George Bellows (American, 1882–1925)
• Culture: America
• Type: Print
• Technique: lithograph
• Dimensions: Image: 44.5 x 42.1 cm (17 1/2 x 16 9/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1937.478

Collection credit

Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.