National Gallery snaps up American masterpiece for £15m
In a stark change of collection policy, the 200 year old National Gallery has made its first acquisition of a major American painting.
The museum's previous collections had largely been restricted to works by European artists from the renaissance to 1900.
Men of the Docks, by American realist painter George Bellows, will now grace the walls of one of the UK's premier artistic institutions alongside the works of Manet and Pissaro.
The painting depicts a body of workers standing by the Brooklyn waterfront on a winter's day. Bellows work focused on the hardship of urban life in New York at the beginning of the 20th century.
Dr Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery, said:
I'm a great fan of American painting, but great examples are hard to come by.
The museum shelled out £15.6m for the painting, which was previously owned by Randolph College in Virginia. The painting was bought with money from a fund established by philanthropist John Paul Getty, established prior to his death in 2003.
"Bellows has almost always been seen in the context of American painting, but the way he painted owed much to Manet, and his depiction of the violence and victims of New York derived from Goya and earlier Spanish art," said Penny.
The American artist was the subject of a 2011 exhibition at the National Gallery last year. The acquisition also marks the beginning of a new partnership between Randolph College and the National Gallery.