The Street (1917): Art, History and Details

The Street (1917) 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:

Tenement dwellers on the Lower East Side of Manhattan spent much of their time on their stoops or in the street socializing, eating, playing, or otherwise escaping their cramped living spaces. Here, the elevated train makes the crowded street feel especially claustrophobic. A woman scolds a barefoot street urchin before a curious audience in the center of the activity. In the foreground, two young women stand out in their gleaming white outfits amid the endless gray tones of the crowd. As ready-to-wear fashions became increasingly available, women of every class could go out on the town sporting the latest styles.

Object facts

• Title: The Street
• Date: 1917
• Creator attribution: George Bellows (American, 1882–1925)
• Culture: America
• Type: Print
• Technique: lithograph
• Dimensions: Platemark: 48.3 x 38.5 cm (19 x 15 3/16 in.); Sheet: 65.4 x 48 cm (25 3/4 x 18 7/8 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1936.547

A detail from the museum

The Third Avenue Elevated train seen in this print, constructed in 1878, covered the length of the Bowery in New York until its closure starting in 1950.

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.