George Bellows

From what I've read he ran with a crowd of painters who went after New York's rough streets at a time when nobody wanted rough streets on a wall — critics called them the Ashcan school, and it wasn't meant kindly.

Bellows made his name painting boxing matches and packed city crowds — this coastal storm is a quieter side of him, painted during a summer away from all that.

Apparently he lived across the street from a club that staged fights like this, so he was more or less painting what went on next door. Prizefighting was illegal in New York at the time, they say, and signing both fighters up as 'members' for the night was the loophole.