Dempsey and Firpo was the result of an assignment George Bellows received from the New York Evening Journal to cover a much-anticipated prize fight between champion Jack Dempsey and his Argentine contender, Luis Firpo. Dempsey ultimately won the brutal four-minute fight, though Bellows depicts him just as he is knocked out of the ring. Bellows created this lithograph for print distribution to a mass market following the success of a painting of the same subject.