"Cliff Dwellers" is a famous work by George Bellows, created in 1913. This oil on canvas painting depicts a colorful crowd in the Lower East Side of New York on a warm summer day. The painting measures approximately 102 cm x 107 cm and is currently located at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which acquired it in 1916.

This work is a representative example of the Ashcan School, an American artistic movement from the early 20th century that favored the realistic representation of urban subjects. In "Cliff Dwellers," people are emerging from apartment buildings to invade the streets, stairs, and scaffolding, while laundry dries above them and a street vendor sells his goods from his cart in the midst of traffic. In the background, a streetcar heads towards Vesey Street.

The painting was created according to a color system promoted by Hardesty Gillmore Maratta, a paint manufacturer and color theorist. Bellows began using this system around 1909 or 1910. According to art historian Michael Quick, "Cliff Dwellers" was his most complex exploration of the Maratta color system, containing three color harmonies used in different areas of the painting.

The painting also reflects the new face of New York between 1870 and 1915, a period during which the city's population grew from one and a half million to five million, largely due to immigration. Many of these newcomers, including Italians, Jews, Irish, and Chinese, crowded into tenement houses on the Lower East Side.