George Belcher

Whilst George Belcher was widely known for being a caricaturist, he was also a fine etcher and painter, generally of sporting items. But it was for his humourus drawings that he was better known. He was educated at King Edward VI school in Berkhamsted before studying at the Gloucester School of Art. After setting up a studio in London he enjoyed nothing more than drawing London life and the people therein and then adding amusing captions to his work. The title of his first major exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in Leicester Square in 1909 was entitled “London Life and Characters”. Belcher was also noted for making serious drawings of strange looking people. His work was soon spotted by various periodicals and he obtained commissions with the leading magazines of the day, Tatler and Punch. Belcher exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1909 and was admitted as a full member of the Academy in 1945 shortly before his death.

All three works submitted by Belcher are hand-colored etchings. In the original, the sheets bear more comprehensive titles: The Wild Irishman from the National Sporting Club, Two Veterans of the National Sporting Club and A Hero of the Ring & his Agent. The National Sporting Club, all of them with the addition: “taken from Life”. The Wild Irishman was boxer Pat O’Keefe, multiple British Middleweight Champion. Two Veterans features Bill Baxter and Arthur Guttridge, in 1918 two elderly gentlemen who, as former boxers, were important figures in the British boxing scene of the 1880s-1900s. Hero of the Ring is a scene starring boxer Jimmy Wilde and his agent Teddy Lewis. Belcher’s series of character studies was made in 1917-1921 for the National Sporting Club, the predecessor of the British Boxing Board of Control. The printing plates were approx. 34 x 23.5 cm in size.