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Thomas Hart Benton
Hoeing Cotton

1932

About the Item

“Hoeing Cotton” is an oil on tin painting by Thomas Hart Benton, painted in 1932. The painting size is 9 1/8 x 13 inches. The framed size is 15 1/4 x 19 x 1 3/4 inches. The work is signed lower right, "Benton". The subject of cotton pickers is one Benton returned to many times, with examples in museums like The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, Yale University Art Gallery, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Benton observed cotton pickers in Georgia while on a trip through the US in the late 1920s that was intended to source material for his mural series, “The American Historical Epic”. The exaggerated curvilinear forms, echoing the wavy lines of the landscape, emphasize the hard labor the main figure is employing. To create these paintings for his mural series, Benton worked from sketches and clay models. Between the time he made the preliminary sketch or model and the time when he completed the paintings, new automated machinery was introduced to the cotton manufacturing process. The resulting efficiency to the sharecropper system allowing many African-Americans to leave the South as part of the Great Migration. Provenance: Feragil Galleries, New York Estate of Lila Nields Private Collection, New York Sotheby's New York: Wednesday, March 15, 2000, Lot 142 Linda Hyman Fine Arts Private Collection, 2001
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