Focus on Men of the Docks and explore the Provenance.
Men of the Docks was exhibited at the Vanderbilt Gallery of the National Academy of Design in 1912, as well as Cornell University. Bellows again exhibited the work at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition of 1915, winning a gold medal. The painting was purchased for the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1920; at the time, the college was one of the foremost for women intent on studying art. At the recommendation of Professor Louise Jordan Smith, students and locals raised $2,500 to purchase the work. Beginning with this painting, the Maier collection eventually grew to include 3,500 works.After the 1980s, Randolph College faced decreasing enrollment and financial difficulties. As such, in 2007 it decided to sell four of its works – including Men of the Docks. All of these works were taken from the Maier Museum in late 2007. Bellows' painting was scheduled to be auctioned at Christie's in New York, and expected to sell for $25–35 million. This would have been a record for an American painting sold at auction. However, this prospective sale faced controversy at the college. Students made "Missing" posters overlaid showing photocopies of Men of the Docks and the three other paintings which were to be sold.A lawsuit against the sale continued over the next several years, with detractors including the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, the College Art Association, and the Association of Art Museum Directors. As the art market deflated, a Virginia judge blocked the sale in November 2007, but in March 2008 opponents of the sale had to drop their suit as they were unable to post the $1 million bond required of them. In 2012 the painting was lent to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to be included in a comprehensive exhibition of Bellow's career. This exhibition later continued on to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London.Ultimately, Men of the Docks was bought by the National Gallery in London in February 2014 for a total of $25.5 million (£15.6 million). The money was acquired from a fund established by Sir John Paul Getty. Director Nicholas Penny, said that the painting was a new direction for the gallery, as a non-European painting in a European style. The museum also touted a “new, transatlantic academic partnership, the first of its kind between an American college and a UK gallery” established by the sale, in which curators could lecture at Randolph and students of the college could do their internships at the National Gallery.In response to the sale, the College Art Association stated that Randolph had "compromised the educational and cultural mission of the museum" by  selling art to increase its coffers, rather than to purchase further art. In protest, both the Indianapolis Museum of Art and Tacoma Art Museum cancelled plans to borrow a Georgia O'Keeffe work. College president Bradley W. Bateman defended the sale by saying that the college was "a college, not a museum", and thus not bound to follow guidelines established for museums. He further argued that Randolph's priority was to ensure quality education for its students, and that the $25.5 million for the painting was a "considerable" addition to the college's endowment of  $136 million. At the time of the sale, Randolph had already sold another of its works, Rufino Tamayo's Troubador.Men of the Docks was the first major American painting acquired by the gallery, and the second painting by Bellows to be publicly owned in Europe. After its acquisition, Men of the Docks was hung in Room 43 of the National Gallery, between works by such European artists as Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro. The painting, with the accession number of NG6649, hangs in Room 45 as of December 2014.
Royal Academy of Arts New York City Randolph College American Panama–Pacific International Exposition Rufino Tamayo National Gallery of Art Tacoma Art Museum endowment Lynchburg, Virginia Association of Art Museum Directors Indianapolis Museum of Art Camille Pissarro Christie's Georgia O'Keeffe National Academy of Design Maier Museum of Art National Gallery Cornell University Claude Monet Louise Jordan Smith London accession number Sir John Paul Getty Randolph Macon Woman's College Metropolitan Museum of Art Nicholas Penny College Art Association