A Knockout

Although created in 1921, A Knockout is based on a drawing Bellows made nearly 15 years earlier, at a time when boxing was a rough-and-tumble underground sport practiced in back rooms of New York taverns. Here, unruly audience members surge into the ring while a referee restrains an enraged fighter from further injuring his opponent. For reasons unknown, Bellows printed only a few impressions of this composition, and it remains one of his rarest lithographs.