Treasures from the Vault: Robert Riggs

Sachi Yanari-Rizzo, Curator of Prints & Drawings

Boxing is not a common subject of art. Robert Riggs’ lithograph, In This Corner, from 1932-33, reflected the growing popularity of the sport. It appeared in paintings and illustrations in the second half of the 19^th century. In this lithograph, we join Riggs in a ringside seat. Across the ring, we see other audience members and, among them, a police officer maintaining order.  

American artists in the early 1900s, later dubbed the Ashcan School, looked to the streets of New York City for inspiration. Instead of European conventional, genteel subjects, they presented frank vignettes of everyday urban life. Artists such as Robert Henri, John Sloan, and, later, George Bellows, depicted unglamorous and often seamy subjects in their unidealized state. They embraced crowded streets teeming with activity, tenements, and all sorts of entertainment. Riggs attended the Art Students League in New York in 1915, the year Robert Henri began teaching. Henri’s ideas surely had an influence on him.  

Philadelphia became Riggs’ home base for much of his life. He worked for advertising firms and contributed illustrations to newspapers and magazines, such as Fortune, Life, and The Saturday Evening Post. 

Riggs took on the role of the detached observer, attracted to the darker parts of the city filled with crowds and loud noises. His interest in prizefighting began around 1927, and increasingly appeared in his art from 1932 to 1934. At that time, he was also productive in making prints, especially lithographs. Riggs created 55, more than half of his 84 lithographs, over a 20-year period. Among these, 26 were images from boxing matches. 

Where did this fascination with prizefighting and surge in print activity come from? Riggs had access to important artistic predecessors around Philadelphia. Thomas Eakins, famed teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, periodically returned to painting sporting events, including boxing in the late 1890s; he attended professional boxing matches at the Philadelphia Arena. In the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s painting Between Rounds, acquired in 1929, Eakins limited our view to a boxer resting in the corner of the raised ring. It is a moment of calm between bursts of activity. The painting is a beautiful anatomical study of the human body–more than just coverage of a boxing match. His pale skin tones direct our attention to him as they starkly contrast against the dark, earthy palette used in the rest of the composition.  

When looking at Riggs’ boxing prints, it is difficult not to think of George Bellows’ work. Bellows, who had just died in 1925, was affiliated with the Ashcan School and a champion of lithography. The artist, along with Albert Sterner and Joseph Pennell, sought to elevate lithography’s stature as a creative medium. This was thanks in large measure to the technical skills of printers George C. Miller in New York City and Theodore Cuno in Philadelphia who printed the artists’ works. It is likely that Riggs viewed the 1931 exhibition of Bellows’ lithographs at The Print Club in Philadelphia. Around this time, Riggs reconciled with his aptitude as a draftsman, not a colorist. He abandoned watercolor and oils for black and white lithography, which became the perfect medium for Riggs to express himself. 

A Stag at Sharkey’s (1917) is Bellows’ most famous print, and is related to his painting of 1909. The composition conveys the dynamic movement in the sport, probably captured at the climax of the bout. The excitement is augmented by the shallow space, which pushes the figures up to the picture plane. Similarly, Riggs brought the viewer close to the action in In This Corner. We are a part of the crowd; our vantage point is eye level with the floor of the ring.  

In Bellows’ Introducing John L. Sullivan the announcer gracefully extends his arms, reminiscent of a dancer. The ring is filled with people, most of whom block the view of the audience; the boxer’s corner team tends to him. About one third of the composition is empty space, which lends airiness and calmness. In Riggs’ lithograph we have a clear view of one of the boxers who is being introduced by the announcer. The announcer gestures and has a commanding presence as his body extends the entire height of the print, giving him a sense of monumentality. The space is compressed and claustrophobic. The separation between the subject and the viewer is the ring’s rope that bisects our view horizontally. 

Riggs’ figures are carefully rendered compared with his earlier prints that are looser and more spontaneous. The muscular boxer in the corner is hunched forward slightly. He is covered, which makes him bulkier, and he takes on a pyramidal shape that is solidly situated in the corner. Riggs frequented training gyms, dressing rooms, and boxing matches. He enjoyed sketching from life, but finished the works in his studio at night with shades drawn tight. 

Riggs often used a subtractive method to create his lithographs: working from dark to light. He drew on the limestone with a lithographic crayon or tusche. He went back and removed some of the material by rubbing, scraping, scratching, or sanding the surface. His approach was likened to an illustrator working on a scratchboard or a printmaker working in mezzotint. This process was labor intensive; it might take weeks before the stone’s completion. Riggs likely used the printing skills of George Miller, with whom Bellows worked. 

Want to see more works on paper from the FWMoA Permanent Collection? Visit Sachi in the Print & Drawing Study Center 11am-3pm Tuesday-Friday or by appointment.