George Wesley Bellows (August 12 or August 19, 1882 – January 8, 1925) was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City, becoming, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, “the most acclaimed American artist of his generation”.   Wikipedia

Bellows once commented that “there is nothing I do not want to know that has to do with life or art.” He drew equal inspiration from municipal workers removing snow from the city’s streets, longshoremen loading and unloading cargo from ocean liners and freighters, and the ladies and gentlemen who created a rich visual pageantry as they enjoyed New York’s parks. The variety of Bellows’s urban subjects was matched by the range of palettes and techniques he employed, often on immense canvases. Few would have disputed a critic who observed of Bellows at the time of his death, “He was an adherent of ‘wallop’ in painting.” In an astute bid for broad appeal, Bellows exhibited his works widely, attracting both critics—”There’s been an awful lot written about me,” he admitted—and patrons. His dramatic paintings of familiar subjects were acquired by major museums, important regional art centers, educational institutions, and prominent collectors, from the relatively adventurous to those with more conventional tastes. Both an active academician and a keen independent, Bellows was at home among diverse factions of the art world. Writing in 1913, the critic Forbes Watson noted his “curious appeal” to “the conservative and radical alike.”
FROM http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2012/bellows

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http://www.georgebellows.com/biography