"The Tournament" (also known as "Tennis at Newport")

This lithographic print (7 from an edition of 63) depicts an elegant audience that has come to watch the tennis tournament at the Newport Casino. A net runs down the center of an open court, which is surrounded by well-dressed groups of people who are both seated and standing. A two-story building, the Newport Casino's East Porches (which joins the Casino Theatre and the Court Tennis Builidng) with wide openings allows crowds to look onto the playing area (Front Lawn Courts). Signed by both the artist and the printer in pencil.

George Bellows was already an established painter when he took up printmaking in 1916. The Bellows family spent the summers of 1918 and 1919 in nearby Middletown, Rhode Island, and visiting the Newport Casino provided Bellows with inspiration for two of his many artworks created in his final years.