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Thomas Hart Benton (painter)
Encyclopedia
Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood
and John Steuart Curry
, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist
art movement. His fluid, almost sculpted paintings showed everyday scenes of life in the United States. Though his work is strongly associated with the Midwest, he painted scores of works of New York City
, where he lived for more than 20 years; Martha’s Vineyard, where he summered for much of his adult life; the American South; and the American West.
, Missouri
, into an influential family of politicians and powerbrokers. Benton's father, Maecenas Benton, was a lawyer and U.S. congressman
. His namesake, great-uncle Thomas Hart Benton
, was one of the first two United States Senators elected from Missouri. As a result of his father's political career, Benton spent his childhood shuttling between Washington D.C. and Missouri, spending one year at Western Military Academy
in 1905-06, and was part of two different cultures. Benton rebelled against his father's grooming him for a future political career, and preferred to develop his interest in art. As a teenager, he worked as a cartoonist for the Joplin American newspaper, in Joplin, Missouri
.
In 1907 Benton enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago
, but left for Paris in 1909 to continue his art education at the Académie Julian
. In Paris, Benton met other North American artists, such as the Mexican Diego Rivera
and Stanton Macdonald-Wright, an advocate of Synchromism
. Benton subsequently adopted a Synchromist style from MacDonald-Wright's influence.
in 1913 and resumed painting. During World War I
, he served in the U.S. Navy and was stationed at Norfolk, Virginia
. His war-related work had an enduring effect on his style. He was directed to make drawings and illustrations of shipyard work and life, and this requirement for realistic documentation strongly affected his later style. Later in the war, classified as a "camoufleur," Benton had to draw camouflaged ships that came into Norfolk harbor. His work was required for several reasons: to ensure that U.S. ship painters were correctly applying the camouflage schemes, to aid in identifying U.S. ships that might later be lost, and to have records of the ship camouflage of other Allied navies. Benton later said that his work for the Navy "was the most important thing, so far, I had ever done for myself as an artist."
. Benton was active in leftist politics. He expanded the scale of his Regionalist works, culminating in his America Today murals at the New School for Social Research in 1930-31. These now hang in the lobby of the AXA building at 1290 Sixth Avenue in New York City. He was strongly influenced by the works of the Spanish artist El Greco
.
Benton broke through to the mainstream in 1932. A relative unknown, he won a commission to paint the murals of Indiana
life that were the state's contribution to the 1933 Century of Progress
Exhibition in Chicago, Illinois. The Indiana Murals stirred controversy; Benton painted everyday people, but he included a portrayal of the state's history that included some aspects which people did not want publicized. For instance, his work was criticized by some for portraying Ku Klux Klan
(KKK) members in full regalia. This was within a decade of the KKK's having reached its peak of 20th-century membership and political influence in the state. The mural panels are now displayed at Indiana University
in Bloomington, with the majority hung in the "Hall of Murals" at Indiana University Auditorium. Four additional panels are displayed in the former University Theatre (now the Indiana Cinema) connected to the Auditorium. Two panels, including the one with images of the KKK, are located in a lecture classroom at Woodburn Hall.
In 1932, Benton also painted The Arts of Life in America, a set of large murals for an early site of the Whitney Museum of American Art
. Major panels include Arts of the City, Arts of the West, Arts of the South and Indian Arts. Five of the panels were purchased by the New Britain Museum of American Art
, Connecticut, in 1953 and are on view there.
On December 24, 1934, Benton was featured on one of the earliest color covers of Time magazine
. Benton's work was featured along with that of fellow Midwesterners Grant Wood
and John Steuart Curry
in an article entitled "The U.S. Scene". The trio were featured as the new heroes of American art, and Regionalism was described as a significant art movement.
In 1935, after he had "alienated both the left-leaning community of artists with his disregard for politics and the larger New York-Paris art world with what was considered his folksy style" Benton left the artistic debates of New York for Missouri. He was commissioned to create a mural for the Missouri State Capitol
in Jefferson City
. A Social History of Missouri is perhaps Benton’s greatest work. As with his earlier murals, there was controversy over his portrayal of history: he included subjects of slavery
, the Missouri outlaw Jesse James
and political boss Tom Pendergast
. With his return to Missouri, Benton embraced the Regionalist art movement.
He settled in Kansas City, Missouri
and accepted a teaching job at the Kansas City Art Institute
. Kansas City afforded Benton greater access to rural America, which was changing rapidly. Benton's sympathy was with the working class and the small farmer, unable to gain material advantage despite the Industrial Revolution
. His works often show the melancholy, desperation and beauty of small-town life. In the late 1930s, he created some of his best-known work, including the iconic allegorical nude Persephone, which for a while hung in Billy Rose’s nightclub, the Diamond Horseshoe. It is now held by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
in Kansas City. In 1937, he published his critically acclaimed autobiography, An Artist in America. The writer Sinclair Lewis
said: “Here’s a rare thing, a painter who can write.” During this period, Benton also began to produce signed, limited edition lithographs, which were sold at $5.00 each through the Associated American Artists
Galleries.
from 1926 to 1935 and at the Kansas City Art Institute
from 1935 to 1941. His most famous student, Jackson Pollock
, whom he mentored in the Art Students League, would diverge from Benton's style and found the Abstract Expressionist
movement. Pollock often said that Benton's traditional teachings gave him something to rebel against.
Benton's students in New York and Kansas City included many painters who would make significant contributions to American art. They included Pollock’s brother Charles Pollock
, Charles Banks Wilson
, Frederic James
, Lamar Dodd
, Reginald Marsh
, Charles Green Shaw
, Margot Peet
, Jackson Lee Nesbitt
, Roger Medearis
, Glenn Gant
, Fuller Potter
, and Delmer J. Yoakum
. Benton also briefly taught Dennis Hopper
at the Kansas City Art Institute; Hopper was later known for being a rebellious actor, filmmaker, and photographer.
Benton was dismissed from the Art Institute in 1941, after he called the typical art museum, "a graveyard run by a pretty boy with delicate wrists and a swing in his gait;" he had made further disparaging references to what he said was the excessive influence of homosexuals ("the third sex") in the art world.
During World War II
, Benton created a series titled The Year of Peril, which portrayed the threat to American ideals by fascism and Nazism. The prints were widely distributed. Following the war, Regionalism fell from favor, eclipsed by the rise of Abstract Expressionism. Benton remained active for another 30 years, but his work portrayed less social commentary and showed bucolic images of pre-industrial farmlands.
He painted a number of murals, including Lincoln (1953), Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri; Trading At Westport Landing (1956), for The River Club in Kansas City; Father Hennepin at Niagara Falls
(1961) for the Power Authority of the State of New York; Turn of the Century, Joplin (1972) in Joplin
; and Independence and the Opening of The West, for the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence
. His work on the Truman Library mural initiated a friendship with the former U.S. President that lasted for the rest of their lives.
Benton died in 1975 at work in his studio, just as he completed his final mural, The Sources of Country Music, for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee
.
residence and carriage house studio in Kansas City
was designated the Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site
. The site remains virtually unchanged from its appearance at the time of his death; clothing, furniture, and paint brushes are still in place. Displaying 13 original works of his art, the house museum is open for guided tours.
Grant Wood
Grant DeVolson Wood was an American painter, born four miles east of Anamosa, Iowa. He is best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest, particularly the painting American Gothic, an iconic image of the 20th century.- Life and career :His family moved to Cedar Rapids after his...
and John Steuart Curry
John Steuart Curry
John Steuart Curry was an American painter whose career spanned from 1924 until his death. He was noted for his paintings depicting life in his home state, Kansas...
, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist
American scene painting
American scene painting refers to a naturalist style of painting and other works of art of the 1920s through the 1950s in the United States. American scene painting is also known as Regionalism....
art movement. His fluid, almost sculpted paintings showed everyday scenes of life in the United States. Though his work is strongly associated with the Midwest, he painted scores of works of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he lived for more than 20 years; Martha’s Vineyard, where he summered for much of his adult life; the American South; and the American West.
Early life and education
Benton was born in NeoshoNeosho, Missouri
Neosho is the most populous city in and the county seat of Newton County, Missouri, United States. Neosho is an integral part of the Joplin, Missouri Metropolitan Statistical Area....
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, into an influential family of politicians and powerbrokers. Benton's father, Maecenas Benton, was a lawyer and U.S. congressman
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
. His namesake, great-uncle Thomas Hart Benton
Thomas Hart Benton (senator)
Thomas Hart Benton , nicknamed "Old Bullion", was a U.S. Senator from Missouri and a staunch advocate of westward expansion of the United States. He served in the Senate from 1821 to 1851, becoming the first member of that body to serve five terms...
, was one of the first two United States Senators elected from Missouri. As a result of his father's political career, Benton spent his childhood shuttling between Washington D.C. and Missouri, spending one year at Western Military Academy
Western Military Academy
Western Military Academy was a private military preparatory school located in Alton,Il. Founded in 1879, Western Military Academy closed in 1971. The campus is located in the National Register of Historic Places District...
in 1905-06, and was part of two different cultures. Benton rebelled against his father's grooming him for a future political career, and preferred to develop his interest in art. As a teenager, he worked as a cartoonist for the Joplin American newspaper, in Joplin, Missouri
Joplin, Missouri
Joplin is a city in southern Jasper County and northern Newton County in the southwestern corner of the US state of Missouri. Joplin is the largest city in Jasper County, though it is not the county seat. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 50,150...
.
In 1907 Benton enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
, but left for Paris in 1909 to continue his art education at the Académie Julian
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...
. In Paris, Benton met other North American artists, such as the Mexican Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
and Stanton Macdonald-Wright, an advocate of Synchromism
Synchromism
Synchromism was an art movement founded in 1912 by American artists Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell. Their abstract "synchromies", based on a theory of color that analogized it to music, were among the first abstract paintings in American art...
. Benton subsequently adopted a Synchromist style from MacDonald-Wright's influence.
Early career and World War I
After studying in Europe, Benton moved to New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1913 and resumed painting. During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, he served in the U.S. Navy and was stationed at Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
. His war-related work had an enduring effect on his style. He was directed to make drawings and illustrations of shipyard work and life, and this requirement for realistic documentation strongly affected his later style. Later in the war, classified as a "camoufleur," Benton had to draw camouflaged ships that came into Norfolk harbor. His work was required for several reasons: to ensure that U.S. ship painters were correctly applying the camouflage schemes, to aid in identifying U.S. ships that might later be lost, and to have records of the ship camouflage of other Allied navies. Benton later said that his work for the Navy "was the most important thing, so far, I had ever done for myself as an artist."
Marriage and family
Benton married Rita Piacenza, an Italian immigrant, in 1922. They met while Benton was teaching art classes for a neighborhood organization in New York City, where she was one of his students. The couple had a son, Thomas Piacenza Benton, born in 1926, and a daughter, Jessie Benton, born in 1939. They were married for 53 years until Thomas's death in 1975. Rita died ten weeks after her husband.Dedication to Regionalism
On his return to New York in the early 1920s, Benton declared himself an "enemy of modernism"; he began the naturalistic and representational work today known as RegionalismAmerican scene painting
American scene painting refers to a naturalist style of painting and other works of art of the 1920s through the 1950s in the United States. American scene painting is also known as Regionalism....
. Benton was active in leftist politics. He expanded the scale of his Regionalist works, culminating in his America Today murals at the New School for Social Research in 1930-31. These now hang in the lobby of the AXA building at 1290 Sixth Avenue in New York City. He was strongly influenced by the works of the Spanish artist El Greco
El Greco
El Greco was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" was a nickname, a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος .El Greco was born on Crete, which was at...
.
Benton broke through to the mainstream in 1932. A relative unknown, he won a commission to paint the murals of Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
life that were the state's contribution to the 1933 Century of Progress
Century of Progress
A Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of a World's Fair held in Chicago from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial. The theme of the fair was technological innovation...
Exhibition in Chicago, Illinois. The Indiana Murals stirred controversy; Benton painted everyday people, but he included a portrayal of the state's history that included some aspects which people did not want publicized. For instance, his work was criticized by some for portraying Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
(KKK) members in full regalia. This was within a decade of the KKK's having reached its peak of 20th-century membership and political influence in the state. The mural panels are now displayed at Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
in Bloomington, with the majority hung in the "Hall of Murals" at Indiana University Auditorium. Four additional panels are displayed in the former University Theatre (now the Indiana Cinema) connected to the Auditorium. Two panels, including the one with images of the KKK, are located in a lecture classroom at Woodburn Hall.
In 1932, Benton also painted The Arts of Life in America, a set of large murals for an early site of the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
. Major panels include Arts of the City, Arts of the West, Arts of the South and Indian Arts. Five of the panels were purchased by the New Britain Museum of American Art
New Britain Museum of American Art
The New Britain Museum of American Art is an art museum in New Britain, Connecticut. Founded in 1903, it is the first museum in the country dedicated to American art....
, Connecticut, in 1953 and are on view there.
On December 24, 1934, Benton was featured on one of the earliest color covers of Time magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
. Benton's work was featured along with that of fellow Midwesterners Grant Wood
Grant Wood
Grant DeVolson Wood was an American painter, born four miles east of Anamosa, Iowa. He is best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest, particularly the painting American Gothic, an iconic image of the 20th century.- Life and career :His family moved to Cedar Rapids after his...
and John Steuart Curry
John Steuart Curry
John Steuart Curry was an American painter whose career spanned from 1924 until his death. He was noted for his paintings depicting life in his home state, Kansas...
in an article entitled "The U.S. Scene". The trio were featured as the new heroes of American art, and Regionalism was described as a significant art movement.
In 1935, after he had "alienated both the left-leaning community of artists with his disregard for politics and the larger New York-Paris art world with what was considered his folksy style" Benton left the artistic debates of New York for Missouri. He was commissioned to create a mural for the Missouri State Capitol
Missouri State Capitol
The Missouri State Capitol is located in the U.S. state of Missouri. Housing the Missouri General Assembly, it is located in the state capital of Jefferson City at 201 West Capitol Avenue. The domed building was designed by the New York architectural firm of Tracy and Swartwout and completed in 1917...
in Jefferson City
Jefferson City, Missouri
Jefferson City is the capital of the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Cole County. Located in Callaway and Cole counties, it is the principal city of the Jefferson City metropolitan area, which encompasses the entirety of both counties. As of the 2010 census, the population was 43,079...
. A Social History of Missouri is perhaps Benton’s greatest work. As with his earlier murals, there was controversy over his portrayal of history: he included subjects of slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, the Missouri outlaw Jesse James
Jesse James
Jesse Woodson James was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. He also faked his own death and was known as J.M James. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary...
and political boss Tom Pendergast
Tom Pendergast
Thomas Joseph Pendergast controlled Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri as a political boss. "Boss Tom" Pendergast gave workers jobs and helped elect politicians during the Great Depression, becoming wealthy in the process.-Early years:Thomas Joseph Pendergast, also known to close friends as...
. With his return to Missouri, Benton embraced the Regionalist art movement.
He settled in Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
and accepted a teaching job at the Kansas City Art Institute
Kansas City Art Institute
The Kansas City Art Institute is a private, independent, four-year college of fine arts and design founded in 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri....
. Kansas City afforded Benton greater access to rural America, which was changing rapidly. Benton's sympathy was with the working class and the small farmer, unable to gain material advantage despite the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. His works often show the melancholy, desperation and beauty of small-town life. In the late 1930s, he created some of his best-known work, including the iconic allegorical nude Persephone, which for a while hung in Billy Rose’s nightclub, the Diamond Horseshoe. It is now held by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its neoclassical architecture and extensive collection of Asian art....
in Kansas City. In 1937, he published his critically acclaimed autobiography, An Artist in America. The writer Sinclair Lewis
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
said: “Here’s a rare thing, a painter who can write.” During this period, Benton also began to produce signed, limited edition lithographs, which were sold at $5.00 each through the Associated American Artists
Associated American Artists
Associated American Artists is an art gallery and business established in 1934 in New York City. The gallery marketed art to the middle classes, first in the form of affordable prints and later in home furnishings and accessories, and played a significant role in the growth of art as an...
Galleries.
Benton as teacher
Benton taught at the Art Students League of New YorkArt Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
from 1926 to 1935 and at the Kansas City Art Institute
Kansas City Art Institute
The Kansas City Art Institute is a private, independent, four-year college of fine arts and design founded in 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri....
from 1935 to 1941. His most famous student, Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
, whom he mentored in the Art Students League, would diverge from Benton's style and found the Abstract Expressionist
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
movement. Pollock often said that Benton's traditional teachings gave him something to rebel against.
Benton's students in New York and Kansas City included many painters who would make significant contributions to American art. They included Pollock’s brother Charles Pollock
Charles Pollock
Charles Cecil Pollock was an American painter and eldest brother of Jackson Pollock. His parents were Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock, his father, who born McCoy, had taken the surname of his parents' neighbours who adopted him after both his own parents died within a year of each...
, Charles Banks Wilson
Charles Banks Wilson
Charles Banks Wilson is an American artist. Wilson was born in Arkansas in 1918, his family eventually moving to Miami, Oklahoma, where he spent his childhood...
, Frederic James
Frederic James
Frederic James was an American painter who specialized in watercolors. He was associated with the Regionalist art movement.-Early life:...
, Lamar Dodd
Lamar Dodd
Lamar Dodd was a U.S. painter whose work reflected a love of the American South.- Early life and education :Born in Fairburn, Georgia to Rev...
, Reginald Marsh
Reginald Marsh (artist)
Reginald Marsh was an American painter, born in Paris, most notable for his depictions of life in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. Crowded Coney Island beach scenes, popular entertainments such as vaudeville and burlesque, women, and jobless men on the Bowery are subjects that reappear...
, Charles Green Shaw
Charles Green Shaw
Charles Green Shaw was an American painter and writer.A significant figure in American abstract art, Shaw enjoyed a varied career as a writer and illustrator, poet, modernist painter, and collector. Born to a wealthy family and orphaned at a young age, Charles and his twin brother were raised by...
, Margot Peet
Margot Peet
Marguerite Munger Peet was an American painter. She did not have a far-reaching artistic reputation during her lifetime as she did not often exhibit her work in public. Her family found over 430 of her paintings after her death, and she has been the subject of three major retrospectives in the...
, Jackson Lee Nesbitt
Jackson Lee Nesbitt
Jackson Lee Nesbitt was an American artist. Nesbitt was born in McAlester, Oklahoma and studied at the Kansas City Art Institute off and on from 1933 to 1941, working primarily with famed Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton and printmaker John de Martelly...
, Roger Medearis
Roger Medearis
Roger Medearis was an American Regionalist painter. He was a student of Thomas Hart Benton while at the Kansas City Art Institute in the late 1930s and took up the technique of egg tempera painting, a rediscovered medium popular with Regionalists...
, Glenn Gant
Glenn Gant
Glenn Gant was a painter who was best known for his Regionalist and American Scene paintings.Gant was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1911. He began his art career at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1930, and he studied under famed Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton in the mid- to late 1930s...
, Fuller Potter
Fuller Potter
Fuller Potter was an American Abstract expressionist artist. He was born in New York City in 1910, attended St. Bernard's School in New York and Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts, and lived most of his life in his Ledyard, Connecticut estate, near Old Mystic...
, and Delmer J. Yoakum
Delmer J. Yoakum
Delmer J. Yoakum was an American fine artist, oil and watercolor painter, designer, serigrapher, Disneyland and Hollywood motion picture studio scenic artist.-Early life:...
. Benton also briefly taught Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
at the Kansas City Art Institute; Hopper was later known for being a rebellious actor, filmmaker, and photographer.
Benton was dismissed from the Art Institute in 1941, after he called the typical art museum, "a graveyard run by a pretty boy with delicate wrists and a swing in his gait;" he had made further disparaging references to what he said was the excessive influence of homosexuals ("the third sex") in the art world.
Later life
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Benton created a series titled The Year of Peril, which portrayed the threat to American ideals by fascism and Nazism. The prints were widely distributed. Following the war, Regionalism fell from favor, eclipsed by the rise of Abstract Expressionism. Benton remained active for another 30 years, but his work portrayed less social commentary and showed bucolic images of pre-industrial farmlands.
He painted a number of murals, including Lincoln (1953), Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri; Trading At Westport Landing (1956), for The River Club in Kansas City; Father Hennepin at Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls
The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...
(1961) for the Power Authority of the State of New York; Turn of the Century, Joplin (1972) in Joplin
Joplin, Missouri
Joplin is a city in southern Jasper County and northern Newton County in the southwestern corner of the US state of Missouri. Joplin is the largest city in Jasper County, though it is not the county seat. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 50,150...
; and Independence and the Opening of The West, for the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence
Independence, Missouri
Independence is the fourth largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri, and is contained within the counties of Jackson and Clay. It is part of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area...
. His work on the Truman Library mural initiated a friendship with the former U.S. President that lasted for the rest of their lives.
Benton died in 1975 at work in his studio, just as he completed his final mural, The Sources of Country Music, for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
.
Legacy and honors
In 1977, Benton's 2-1/2 story late-VictorianVictorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
residence and carriage house studio in Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
was designated the Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site
Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site
The Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site is located at 3616 Belleview, Kansas City, Missouri. The park was established in 1977 and preserves the house and studio of Missouri artist Thomas Hart Benton. Tours are provided that show the house and studio as he left it when he died on...
. The site remains virtually unchanged from its appearance at the time of his death; clothing, furniture, and paint brushes are still in place. Displaying 13 original works of his art, the house museum is open for guided tours.
Further reading
...... ("It wasn't until Thomas Hart Benton came to the island in 1920 that he found himself, and the painting style for which he would become famous.")..External links
- Works by Thomas Hart Benton in the Smithsonian American Art MuseumSmithsonian American Art MuseumThe Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C. with an extensive collection of American art.Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States...
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