Instead of portraying the early 20th-century skyscrapers that symbolized New York City’s prosperity, Bellows concerned himself with life on the margins of the city. River-Front shows dozens of swimmers—almost all men—crowded onto a pier somewhere on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, creating a lively mixture of ages, bodies, and personalities.

Swimming in the rivers around Manhattan was a way for tenement dwellers to cool off during the hot summer months, a time when overcrowded, under-ventilated housing becomes especially stifling and oppressive. Blending scenes of leisure with a grimy industrial waterfront, River-Front highlights the challenges of growing up poor in the modern city, as well as the resilience and resourcefulness of those living in poverty. The print is one of 230 Bellows prints in the Carter’s collection, 217 of which were acquired from the artist’s estate to form the George Bellows Estate Set of Graphic Art.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)