"George Bellows," by Robert Burleigh From "George Bellows: Painter With a Punch!" Most children's books about celebrated artists don't open with anything like fight night at Sharkey's. Not many grown-up books do either. But a scene in which two boxers "bob and weave, jabbing and pummeling each other with muscular arms" is a fitting way to introduce the American painter George Bellows, who is also the subject of a large retrospective exhibition currently at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. In "George Bellows: Painter With a Punch," Robert Burleigh, a painter himself and an author of many nonfiction picture books ("Seurat and "La Grande Jatte," " "Night Flight: Amelia Earhart Crosses the Atlantic"), shows how Bellows's experiences as an athlete growing up in the Midwest influenced his painting, with its gritty images and high-pitch level of action and emotional engagement. Bellows was born in1882 and grew up in Columbus, Ohio. When he wasn't drawing and painting, he played basketball and baseball. At first torn between athletics and art, he dropped out of college and moved to New York to become a painter. But he was immediately set apart because of his interest in street life, tenement conditions, urban children and the lives of the have-nots, subjects deemed inappropriate (or at the very least, displeasing) for a painter. Along with John Sloan and Everett Shinn, Bellows was labeled one of the "apostles of ugliness." But his canvases impressed some reviewers and like-minded friends, including Eugene O'Neill, who shared his commitment to realism. Bellow served on the editorial board of The Masses, the innovative socialist magazine. Meanwhile, he remained an athlete, making money by playing on a semi-pro baseball team. He also kept up, as a fan, with boxing, though it was largely illegal in New York at the time. Burleigh tells Bellows's story with immediacy - his present-tense narrative helps - and with a firm grasp of his audience, striking the right balance of broad stroke and detail. Burleigh's admiration of his subject comes through loud and strong and infectiously. If Bellows had a dark side, we don't learn about it here. A helpful end section offers a list of the museums where Bellows's works can be seen, along with source notes, an index and a bibliography, unusual for such a short account. And there are handsome reproductions of Bellows's work in its many aspects, from his famous oil compositions of boxers to lesser-known charcoal streetscapes and loving portraits of his family. This impressive book captures the connection between the man and the world he observed during his short life (he died of appendicitis at 42). A new generation of young urban observers will be grateful.