George Luks, “The Wrestlers”, 1905, Oil on Canvas, 48 x 66 Inches, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The 1905 oil painting “The Wrestlers”, depicting two nude men wrestling,  is George Luks’ best known work. He painted it in order to shock the members of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts whom he thought were idiots. This painting was displayed at “The Eight”, the 1908 Ashcan School exhibition at the Macbeth Galleries on Fifth Avenue in New York.