George Bellows Lithograph Value: Why A Stag at Sharkey's Is Worth So Much More

Most George Bellows lithographs sell for $500 to $3,000. A Stag at Sharkey's brings $40,000 to $80,000 and has topped $200,000. Here is why the image matters so much, and how to tell what you have.

SebastianCharles Auctions

Two prints by the same artist. Same years, same printing method, same pencil signature. One sells for $800. The other sells for $60,000. That gap is real, and George Bellows is the clearest example of it in American printmaking.

When people bring us art, they usually ask about the artist first. That matters. But with prints, the image itself often matters more than the name in the corner. Bellows proves it, and once you see how it works, you will look at every print a little differently.

Who George Bellows was

George Bellows (1882 to 1925) was one of the best known American realists of the early 20th century. He painted New York as he found it: tenement kids, crowded docks, the rivers and the fights. He took up lithography in 1916 and made his last print in 1924, the year before he died. In those years he produced more than 190 lithographs, most in small editions that rarely went past 50 impressions.

His subjects range widely. He drew his wife and daughters, his friends, nudes, religious scenes, tennis matches, courtroom dramas and summers in Maine. He also made 16 lithographs of boxing. A handful of those 16 prints drive his entire market.

What most Bellows lithographs sell for

Most Bellows lithographs sell for somewhere between $500 and $3,000 at auction. Portraits, figure studies and quieter scenes sit at the low end. Phillips sold an estate signed impression of his 1916 print Reducing for $516. A portrait of his friend, the painter Eugene Speicher, carried an estimate of $300 to $600 at a regional auction.

These are good prints by an important artist. They just do not show the image collectors fight over.

What A Stag at Sharkey's sells for

A Stag at Sharkey's is the Bellows print everyone wants. A good impression typically brings $40,000 to $80,000, and the best ones go much higher.

• Christie's sold an impression from the Alan and Marianne Schwartz collection for $214,200 in October 2024, against an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000.
• Swann Galleries sold one for $168,000, the auction record for any Bellows print at the time.
• Christie's sold another for $68,500, and one from the Jerry Perenchio collection for $52,500. Both carried estimates of $60,000 to $80,000.
• Sotheby's estimated an impression with foxing and rebuilt sheet edges at $25,000 to $35,000.

Even a damaged Stag at Sharkey's is worth ten times a typical Bellows print in perfect condition.

Why one image is worth so much more

Here is the part that surprises people. A Stag at Sharkey's is not rare by Bellows standards. The edition ran to roughly 100 impressions, about double the size of most of his editions. If rarity set the price, this print would sell for less than his others. It sells for far more. The image is the reason.

Four things make it the image:

• It is his signature subject. Bellows first painted the scene in 1909. That painting hangs at the Cleveland Museum of Art and appears in nearly every survey of American art. The lithograph followed in 1917.
• It has a great story. Prizefighting was illegal in New York at the time. Sharkey's Athletic Club, a saloon run by former heavyweight Tom Sharkey across the street from Bellows's studio, got around the law by making the fighters club members for the night. Those fighters were called stags.
• It works as a picture. Two fighters lock together under harsh light, their bodies nearly merged into one shape, while the crowd below roars. Bellows left out the ropes on the near side so nothing blocks your view. He even put himself in the crowd at the right edge of the ring.
• It pulls buyers from more than one world. American art collectors want it. Print collectors want it. Boxing and sports collectors want it. Major museums own it, which tells every bidder the image is a landmark. When three groups of buyers chase the same 100 sheets, prices climb.

Subject matters, but the specific image matters most

Boxing alone does not guarantee a big price. Bellows made 16 fight prints, and they do not all sell like A Stag at Sharkey's. Introducing John L. Sullivan, a 1916 ringside scene with the old champion taking a bow, sold for $5,040 at Phillips. That is a strong Bellows result, and still a small fraction of what the top image brings.

Dempsey and Firpo, his print of the 1923 fight where Luis Firpo knocked Jack Dempsey out of the ring, sold for $108,000 at Swann in 2012. It is the other blockbuster. The difference between those two and the rest comes down to one question: how famous is the picture?

We see the same pattern with original work. We sold a small Bellows drawing of a sailboat at Camden, Maine for $1,700. It is an original by his own hand, and it still brought a fraction of what his famous print brings. With Bellows, what the picture shows counts for more than how it was made.

How to tell what you have

• Check the title. Bellows usually wrote the title in pencil in the lower margin, centered. Look it up in the Mason catalogue raisonné, the standard reference for his lithographs. A Stag at Sharkey's is Mason 46.
• Look at the signature. A lifetime impression is signed Geo Bellows in pencil at lower right, usually with an edition number at lower left. Many prints left in his studio at his death were signed later by his daughter Jean Bellows Booth, who added her initials J.B.B. under the signature. Estate signed impressions are genuine prints, but they generally bring less.
• Measure it. The image of A Stag at Sharkey's runs about 18 3/4 by 23 3/4 inches. An image noticeably smaller or larger points to a reproduction.
• Rule out a reproduction. Posters and book plates of this image are everywhere. Look at the dark areas with a magnifier. A regular pattern of printed dots means a photomechanical copy, not an original lithograph.
• Note the condition. Old framing causes light stain, foxing and brittle edges, especially on the thin Japan paper Bellows often used. Condition moves the price, but as that Sotheby's estimate shows, a famous image holds a lot of value even when the sheet has problems.

The bigger lesson for any print

This goes far beyond Bellows. Picasso, Peter Max and dozens of other artists each have a few images that bring many times what the rest of their work brings. So when you look at a print, ask two questions. Who made it? And is this one of their famous images? The second answer can move the value 20 times or more.

It is one of the fun parts of this business. Two sheets of paper from the same studio, the same year, the same press, and one of them pays for a car. The difference is what the artist chose to draw, and how much the world still cares about that moment.

Thinking about selling a Bellows print?

If you have a George Bellows lithograph, or any print you are not sure about, send us photos of the front, the signature and the margins. Sebastian reviews every inquiry personally. We sell to a national and international bidder base on LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable and HiBid, which is where a print like A Stag at Sharkey's finds the buyers who will compete for it. Request an estimate and we will tell you what you have and what it should bring.