The Drunk (1924): Art, History and Details

The Drunk (1924) 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:

George Bellows made this lithograph as an illustration for an article in support of Prohibition published in Good Housekeeping by American suffragist Mabel Potter Daggett. Supporters of Prohibition, which had gone into effect in 1920, believed that alcohol was responsible for many societal problems, including physical violence. In this distressing image, a drunken father confronts his wife with a fist, while a daughter steps in to help and children cower in the corner. Bellows’s strong triangular composition reveals his fascination with an artistic theory called “dynamic symmetry,” in which geometry is used to promote continuity, flow, and balance.

Object facts

• Title: The Drunk
• Date: 1924
• Creator attribution: George Bellows (American, 1882–1925)
• Culture: America
• Type: Print
• Technique: lithograph
• Dimensions: Platemark: 39.7 x 33 cm (15 5/8 x 13 in.); Sheet: 57.7 x 44 cm (22 11/16 x 17 5/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1936.579

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.