Brain workers taking their exercise.
-George Bellows
Living at the YMCA after his arrival in New York City gave Bellows plenty of material
for lithographs. He was particularly interested in what he called the "brain workers,"
the sedentary businessmen who came to the YMCA in search of organized physical
activity. Though this lithograph was made long after Bellows had moved out of the
YMCA, he apparently took great delight in satirizing the much older men who didn't
share his physical prowess. The YMCA lithographs are the work of a young man who,
just beginning his career, cannot resist mocking the generations
who came before him.
