Jack Dempsey Championship Fight..., N.Y.

Ruth Harris Bohan, artist

1891–1981

Jack Dempsey Championship Fight..., N.Y., 1927

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: canvas; oil

Dimensions:
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 78.5 x 99.1 cm
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 30 7/8 x 39 in

Credit line: Gift of Ruth Harris Bohan

Accession number: 1970.0074

Not on display

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Label texts

Kansas City artist and world-traveler Ruth Harris Bohan witnessed the famous boxing match portrayed here in person in Philadelphia in 1926, a fight that made headlines all across the United States. Athletic competitions were popular subjects in the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries among artists such as Thomas Eakins and George Bellows. While those two artists would have focused on the straining musculature of the athletes, Ruth Bohan instead took a more distant view on this masculine domain. Using a fairly sketchy style, she emphasized the circus-like atmosphere and spatial and lighting contrasts of this event, at which Gene Tunney defeated champion Jack Dempsey.
Susan Earle, Curator of European and American Art

Exhibition Label:
"xy," Jun-2009, Kris Ercums
Kansas City artist and world-traveler Ruth Harris Bohan witnessed the famous boxing match portrayed here in person in Philadelphia in 1926, a fight that made headlines all across the United States. Athletic competitions were popular subjects in the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries among artists such as Thomas Eakins and George Bellows. While those two artists would have focused on the straining musculature of the athletes, Ruth Bohan instead took a more distant view on this masculine domain. Using a fairly sketchy style, she emphasized the circuslike atmosphere and spatial and lighting contrasts of this event, at which Gene Tunney defeated champion Jack Dempsey.
Susan Earle, Curator of European and American Art