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Thomas Hart Benton Art

American, 1889-1975
Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri on April 15, 1889. Even as a boy, he was no stranger to the "art of the deal" or to the smoke-filled rooms in which such deals were often consummated. His grandfather had been Missouri's first United States Senator and served in Washington for thirty years. His father, Maecenas Benton, was United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri under Cleveland and served in the United States House of Representatives during the McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt administrations. Benton's brother, Nat, was prosecutor for Greene County, Missouri, during the 1930s. As soon as he could walk, Benton traveled with his father on political tours. There he learned the arts of chewing and smoking, and while the men were involved in their heated discussions, Benton delighted in finding new cream colored wallpaper on the staircase wall, at the age of six or seven, and drew in charcoal his first mural, a long multi-car freight train. As soon as he was eighteen, even though his father wanted him to study law, Benton left for Chicago where he studied at the Art Institute during the years 1907 and 1908. He continued his studies in Paris, where he learned delicious wickedness, aesthetic and otherwise. Once back home, he became the leader of the Regionalist School, the most theatrical and gifted of the 1930s muralists and as Harry Truman described him,"the best damned painter in America." Detractors said that Benton was "a fascist, a communist, a racist and a bigot"; the ingenious structure, powerful use of modeling and scale and the high-colored humanity of the murals and easel paintings are retort enough. He was a dark, active dynamo, only 5 ft., 3 1/2 in. tall. He was outspoken, open, charmingly profane; he had a great mane of hair and a face the texture of oak bark. He wore rumpled corduroy and flannel, and walked with the unsteady swagger of a sailor just ashore. He poured a salwart drink, chewed on small black cigars and spat in the fire. Benton was once described as the "churlish dean of regionalist art." If you listened to a variety of art authorities, you would find them equally divided between Harry Truman's assessment of Benton as "the best damned painter in America" and Hilton Kramer who proclaimed Benton "a failed artist." The East Coast art establishment tended to regard Benton as memorable for one reason only: he was the teacher of Jackson Pollock. Benton was married in 1922 to Rita, a gregarious Italian lady, and they had a daughter and a son. At the height of his fame in the 1940s, Benton bungled the buy-out he was offered by Walt Disney and went his own way, completing his last mural in 1975 in acrylics the year of his death. He died in 1975.
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INSTRUCTION
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Santa Monica, CA
THOMAS HART BENTON (1889-1975) INSTRUCTION 1940 (Fath 41) Lithograph, signed edition of 250 as published by Associated American Artists. 10 ¼” x 12 ¼”. Full margins, deckle edges....
Category

1940s American Realist Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

'Plowing It Under' — WPA Era American Regionalism
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Thomas Hart Benton, 'Goin' Home', lithograph, 1937, edition 250, Fath 14. Signed in pencil. Signed in the stone, lower right. A fine, richly-inked impression, on off-white, wove pape...
Category

1930s American Realist Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

SLOW TRAIN THROUGH ARKANSAS
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Portland, ME
Benton, Thomas Hart (American, 1889-1975 SLOW TRAIN THROUGH ARKANSAS. Fath . Lithograph, 1941. Edition of 250 published by Associated American Artists (A.A.A.). 9 7/8 x 12 inches (im...
Category

1940s Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Prodigal Son
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in London, GB
A man raises his hand to his chin, his neck tilted and face turned to look at a dilapidated farmhouse, barely held together by planks of wood and exposed to the elements. Behind him ...
Category

1930s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

PLOUGHING IT UNDER
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Santa Monica, CA
THOMAS HART BENTON (1889-1975) PLOUGHING IT UNDER (aka Ploughing) 1934 (Fath 8) Original lithograph, signed in pencil. Edition of 250 as published by Associated American Artists (AA...
Category

1930s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

"White Calf, " Farm Genre Scene Original Lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"White Calf" is an original lithograph print by Thomas Hart benton. It features the image of a man milking a cow while her calf lays down in front. Benton's breathtaking way of rende...
Category

1940s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Thomas Hart Benton Original Lithograph, 1944 - Wreck of the Ol’ ‘97
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Phoenix, AZ
Original stone lithograph created 1944 by well-known Regionalist Thomas Hart Benton. The print is in excellent condition with full margins and pencil signed lower right. Also signed in the stone. It is matted in a 4-ply archival mat and rests in a simple black frame. Image size: 10 ½ x 15. Frame size: 18 x 23. Published by AAA. Ed: 250. Thomas Hart Benton found inspiration for his art in the ebb and flow of daily life in rural and small-town America. Wreck of the Ol’ 97, one of his best-known prints, is based on a ballad of the same title that tells the story of a rail disaster. A speeding locomotive attempting to make up lost time jumped the tracks as it descended a Virginia mountain...
Category

Mid-20th Century Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Paper, Lithograph

Discussion
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in London, GB
In this charming regionalist lithograph, Benton captures a classic Midwestern American scene: two men talking, drinking, and smoking together in a bar. Titled 'Discussion', the artwo...
Category

1930s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Down the River
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in London, GB
In this sentimental work from 1939, Benton expresses his admiration for the rural lifestyle of the Midwest. He highlights the connection between man and the land by depicting two fig...
Category

1930s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Nebraska Evening
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in London, GB
A fine impression with good margins published by Associated American Artists.
Category

1940s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Haystack
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in London, GB
A fine impression of this very popular image with full margins (smaller on top and bottom) published by Associated American Artists.
Category

1930s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

"FANTASY" Oil on Canvas by Thomas Hart Benton
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in New York, NY
"FANTASY" by Thomas Hart Benton. Oil on canvas laid on wood with a gorgeous gold gilded frame. Price upon request.
Category

1940s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Canvas, Paint

Self Portrait (~24% OFF LIST PRICE, Midwestern Art, American Painter, Modern)
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Kansas City, MO
Thomas Hart Benton Self Portrait 1972 Lithograph Image Size: 19.5 x 13.75 inches Matted Size: 28.5 x 22.25 inches Edition: 300 Signed by hand, lower right COA provided Ref.: Fath, 84...
Category

1970s Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Thomas Hart Benton Original Lithograph, 1939 - "Shallow Creek"
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Phoenix, AZ
Original stone lithograph by well-known Regionalist Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975). Titled: "Shallow Creek.” The print has full margins and is in excellent condition. AAA print creat...
Category

1930s Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Paper

HYMN SINGER / THE MINSTREL / BURL IVES -- Large Benton
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Santa Monica, CA
THOMAS HART BENTON (1890- 1975) HYMN SINGER / THE MINSTREL (Portrait of Burl Ives) 1950 (Fath 74) Lithograph signed with full signature “Thomas H. Benton” A large image, 15 ¾ x 12 i...
Category

1950s American Realist Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Old Man Reading
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in London, GB
Accompanied by a lantern, an elderly man sits alone, engrossed in a newspaper. Benton used a lithographic process to draw and produce this image. He renders the face and paper well-l...
Category

1940s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

lithograph
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: lithograph. Executed by Thomas Hart Benton to illustrate the Lynn Riggs classic "Green Grow the Lilacs" and printed in 1954 in a limited edition of 1500 by the University of ...
Category

1950s Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Mural Study for "History of Water" American Scene Modernism Social Realism WPA
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in New York, NY
Mural Study for "History of Water" American Scene Modernism Social Realism WPA Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975) "Water Story" (Study for The History of Water) Tempera and o...
Category

1930s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Oil, Egg Tempera, Board

The Hymn Singer
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Missouri, MO
Signed in Pencil Lower Right Ed. 500 Circulated by Twayne Publishers, New York City Image Size: 16 x 12 3/8 Framed Size: 24 1/4 x 20 1/2 inches The legendary actor actor and musici...
Category

1950s American Realist Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

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Alexander Calder Circus Reproduction Lithograph After a Drawing
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(after) Alexander Calder "Calder's Circus" offset lithograph on wove paper after drawings by the artist Published by Art in America and Perls gallery in 1964 (from drawings done in the 1930's) these range slightly in size but they are all about 13 X 17 inches (with minor variations in size as issued.) These have never been framed. The outer folio is not included just the one lithograph. James Sweeny from the introduction “The fame of Calder’s circus spread quickly between the years 1927 and 1930. All the Paris art world came to know it. It brought him his first great personal success. But what was more important, the circus also provided the first steps in Calder’s development as an original sculptor” Clive Gray wrote ”A visit to the studio of Alexander Calder led to the chance discovery of some hundred masterful circus drawings completed over thirty years ago. We publish, for the first time, a choice of sixteen from that group.” With signed introduction by Miro. 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Calder’s work is in many permanent collections, most notably in the Whitney Museum of American Art, but also the Guggenheim Museum; the Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Centre Georges Pompidou. He produced many large public works, including .125 (at JFK Airport, 1957), Pittsburgh (Carnegie International prize winner 1958, Pittsburgh International Airport) Spirale (UNESCO in Paris, 1958), Flamingo and Universe (both in Chicago, 1974), and Mountains and Clouds (Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 1976). Although primarily known for his sculpture, Calder was a prodigious artist with a restless creative spirit, whose diverse practice included painting and printmaking, miniatures (such as his famous Cirque Calder), children’s book illustrations, theater set design, jewelry design, tapestry and rug works, and political posters. Calder was honored by the US Postal Service with a set of five 32-cent stamps in 1998, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously in 1977, after refusing to receive it from Gerald Ford one year earlier in protest of the Vietnam War. Calder moved to New York and enrolled at the Art Students League, studying briefly with Thomas Hart Benton, George Luks, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and John Sloan. While a student, he worked for the National Police Gazette where, in 1925, one of his assignments was sketching the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Calder became fascinated with the action of the circus, a theme that would reappear in his later work. In 1926, Calder moved to Paris, enrolled in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and established a studio at 22 rue Daguerre in the Montparnasse Quarter. In June 1929, while traveling by boat from Paris to New York, Calder met his future wife, Louisa James (1905-1996), grandniece of author Henry James and philosopher William James. They married in 1931. While in Paris, Calder met and became friends with a number of avant-garde artists, including Fernand Léger, Jean Arp, and Marcel Duchamp. Cirque Calder (on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art at present) became popular with the Parisian avant-garde. He also invented wire sculpture, or "drawing in space," and in 1929 he had his first solo show of these sculptures in Paris at Galerie Billiet. Hi! (Two Acrobats) in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art is an early example of the artist's wire sculpture. The painter Jules Pascin, a friend of Calder's from the cafes of Montparnasse, wrote the preface to the catalog. A visit to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930, where he was impressed by the environment-as-installation, "shocked" him into fully embracing abstract art, toward which he had already been tending. Dating from 1931, Calder’s sculptures of discrete movable parts powered by motors were christened “mobiles” by Marcel Duchamp, a French pun meaning both "motion" and "motive." At the same time, Calder was also experimenting with self-supporting, static, abstract sculptures, dubbed "stabiles" by Jean Arp in 1932 to differentiate them from mobiles. Public commissions increasingly came his way in the 1960s. Notable examples are .125 for JFK Airport in 1957, Spirale for UNESCO in Paris 1958 and Trois disques, commissioned for Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Calder's largest sculpture at 25.7 meters high was El Sol Rojo, constructed outside the Aztec Stadium for the 1968 Summer Olympics "Cultural Olympiad" events in Mexico City. 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Category

1930s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

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Crowned T-Rex - Lithograph, 1997
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Located in Paris, IDF
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1990s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

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Haystack
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in London, GB
A fine impression of this very popular image with full margins (smaller on top and bottom) published by Associated American Artists.
Category

1930s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Haystack
Haystack
$4,378
H 19 in W 21.25 in D 1.5 in
Nebraska Evening
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in London, GB
A fine impression with good margins published by Associated American Artists.
Category

1940s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Nebraska Evening
Nebraska Evening
$4,378
H 19 in W 21.5 in D 1.5 in
Down the River
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in London, GB
In this sentimental work from 1939, Benton expresses his admiration for the rural lifestyle of the Midwest. He highlights the connection between man and the land by depicting two fig...
Category

1930s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Down the River
Down the River
$4,378
H 21.5 in W 18.5 in D 1.5 in
Previously Available Items
lithograph
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: lithograph. Executed by Thomas Hart Benton to illustrate the Lynn Riggs classic "Green Grow the Lilacs" and printed in 1954 in a limited edition of 1500 by the University of ...
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1950s Thomas Hart Benton Art

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Lithograph

'Goin' Home' — WPA Era American Regionalism
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Thomas Hart Benton, 'Goin' Home', lithograph, 1937, edition 250, Fath 14. Signed in pencil. Signed in the stone, lower right. A fine, richly-inked impression, on off-white, wove paper, with margins, in excellent condition. Published by Associated American Artists. Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 9 7/16 x 11 7/8 inches; sheet size 10 3/4 x 13 5/16 inches. Impressions of this work are held in the following museum collections: Figge Art Museum, Georgetown University Art Collection, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. ABOUT THE ARTIST “Benton’s idiom was essentially political and rhetorical, the painterly equivalent of the country stump speeches that were a Benton family tradition. The artist vividly recalled accompanying his father, Maecenas E. Benton — a four-term U.S. congressman, on campaigns through rural Missouri. Young Tom Benton grew up with an instinct for constituencies that led him to assess art on the basis of its audience appeal. His own art, after the experiments with abstraction, was high-spirited entertainment designed to catch and hold an audience with a political message neatly bracketed between humor and local color.” —Elizabeth Broun “Thomas Hart Benton: A Politician in Art,” Smithsonian Studies in American Art, Spring 1987. Born in 1889 in Neosho, Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton spent much of his childhood and adolescence in Washington, D.C., where his father, Maecenas Eason Benton, served as a Democratic member of Congress from 1897 to 1905. Hoping to prepare Benton for a political career, his father sent him to Western Military Academy. After nearly two years at the academy, Benton persuaded his mother to support him in attending the Art Institute of Chicago for two years, followed by two additional years at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1912, Benton returned to America and moved to New York to pursue his artistic career. One of his first jobs involved painting sets for silent films, which were being produced in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Benton credits this experience with equipping him with the skills necessary to create his large-scale murals. When World War I broke out, Benton joined the Navy. Stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, he was assigned to create drawings of camouflaged ships arriving at Norfolk Naval Station. These renderings were used to identify vessels that might be lost in battle. Benton later remarked that being a "camofleur" profoundly impacted his career: "When I came out of the Navy after the First World War," he said, "I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be just a studio painter, a pattern maker in the fashion then dominating the art world—as it still does. I began to think of returning to the painting of subjects, subjects with meanings, which people, in general, might be interested in." While developing his Regionalist vision, Benton also taught art, first at a city-supported school and later at The Art Students League from 1926 to 1935. One of his students was a young Jackson Pollock, who regarded Benton as both a mentor and father figure. In 1930, Benton was commissioned to paint a mural for the New School for Social Research. The "America Today" mural, now permanently exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, led to many more commissions as Benton’s work gained wide recognition. The Regionalist Movement became popular during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Painters such as Benton, Grant Wood, and John Steuart Curry rejected modernist European influences, choosing instead to depict realistic images of small-town and rural life—comforting representations of the American heartland during a period of upheaval. Time Magazine referred to Benton as "the most virile of U.S. painters of the U.S. Scene," featuring his self-portrait on the cover of a 1934 issue that included a story titled "The Birth of Regionalism." In 1935, Benton left New York and returned to Missouri, where he taught at the Kansas City Art Institute. His outspoken criticism of modern art, art critics, and political views alienated him from many influential figures in both political and art circles. Nonetheless, Benton remained true to his beliefs, continuing to create murals, paintings, and prints that captured enduring images of American life. The dramatic and engaging characteristics of Benton’s artwork drawn the attention of Hollywood producers, leading him to create illustrations and posters for films, including his famous lithographs for the film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s "The Grapes of Wrath," produced by Twentieth Century Fox. During the 1930s, The Limited Editions Club of New York asked Benton to illustrate special editions of three of Mark Twain’s books...
Category

1930s American Realist Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Thomas Hart Benton Original Lithograph, 1939 - "Cradling Wheat"
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Phoenix, AZ
Original stone lithograph created 1939 by well-known Regionalist Thomas Hart Benton. The print is in fine condition with full margins and pencil signed lower right. Also signed in the stone lower left. Fath #27. Image size: 9 1/2"h x 12"w. Title: “Cradling Wheat...
Category

20th Century Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Paper

COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Santa Monica, CA
THOMAS HART BENTON (1889-1975) COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN (MISSOURI MUSICIANS) 1931 (Fath 4) Lithograph, signed in pencil. Although Fath indicates an edition of 75, it is numbered ...
Category

1930s American Realist Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

lithograph
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: lithograph. Executed by Thomas Hart Benton to illustrate the Lynn Riggs classic "Green Grow the Lilacs" and printed in 1954 in a limited edition of 1500 by the University of ...
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1950s Thomas Hart Benton Art

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Kansas Farmyard / Missouri Farmyard
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Santa Monica, CA
THOMAS HART BENTON (1889-1975) MISSOURI FARMYARD, 1936 (Fath 10) AKA KANSAS FARMYARD Lithograph as published by Associated American Artists. Edition 250. Signed in pencil and in the...
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1930s American Realist Thomas Hart Benton Art

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Lithograph

Thomas Hart Benton Original Lithograph, 1949, Prayer Meeting
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Original stone lithograph created 1949 by well-known Regionalist Thomas Hart Benton. The print is in excellent condition and pencil signed lower right. Also signed in the stone lowe...
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By Thomas Hart Benton
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Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) Black and White Folio Lithograph "Jesse James"
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A large folio lithograph on wove paper signed in pencil lower right, from the edition of 100 published by Associated American Artists New York, with full margins, archivally matted a...
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Study of a Male Nude (Original Thomas Hart Benton, Signed & Authenticated)
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in New Orleans, LA
A rare ORIGINAL and authenticated pen-and-ink drawing with a fine provenance, and a wonderful drawing at that, by legendary American Scene artist Thomas Hart Benton. Though we are most familiar with his WPA-era paintings of rural Midwestern scenes, his drawings are less familiar - but they dramatically demonstrate his superb draftsmanship. The work as framed measures 19.5" x 15.25"; unframed, the artwork measures 14.5" x 10.25". Fine condition. Comes with a copy of a certificate of authenticity: provenance: Savor Gallery, New York, NY; Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, NY. Proudly presented by Guy Lyman Fine Art, New Orleans The following bio information was taken from AskArt: "Important realist painter of the regional school, muralist, printmaker, teacher, writer. A member of the famous Missouri political family, Tom Benton...
Category

Mid-20th Century Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Ink

Morning Train or Soldier's Farewell - 1940s Lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Denver, CO
'Morning Train or Soldier's Farewell' is a lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton from 1943. Presented in a custom frame with all archival materials measuring 20 ¾ x 24 ½ inches; image size is 9 ¼ x 13 ½ inches. Print is in good condition, please contact us for a detailed condition report. About the Artist: Born Missouri, 1889 Died Missouri, 1975 Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri and named for a great uncle and early United States Senator. His father, Colonel M.E. Benton was a Congressman for eight years. The family lived in Washington D.C. in the winter and Neosho in the summer. Determined to pursue his talent he later said he had to run away from home to become an artist. His draftsman experience in the Navy from 1918-19 led to his American Scene realist style, beginning with a mural titled The American Historical Epic made for the New School of Social Research in New York City. This work earned much respect for mural painting and was key to the support of artists in the Federal Art Projects. His murals at the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City are major American Scene murals, and in 1957 he was commissioned by Robert Moses, chairman of the board of the Power Authority of the State of New York, to paint a mural for the Power Authority at Massena. For this work at the site, he did extensive research on the theme which was the Canadian expedition of Jacques Cartier in the mid-1500s. During the early part of his career he lived in New York City where he taught at the Art Students League and became a major influence on the style of gestural painter, Jackson Pollock. But increasingly Benton grew to believe that art should express one’s surroundings rather than abstract ideas and that the ordinary person most exemplified American life. He inherited many of these ideas from his populist father who served as a Congressman from Missouri from 1897 to 1905. In 1935, he established a studio in Kansas City where he painted for the next forty years until his death at age 85. Fellow Missourian and former US President...
Category

1940s American Modern Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Paper, Lithograph

'Instruction' 1940
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Pembroke Pines, FL
THOMAS HART BENTON (American, 1889-1975) "Instruction", 1940 Lithograph on paper 10-1/4 x 12-1/4 inches (26.0 x 31.1 cm) (image) Ed. 250 Signed in lower right margin: Benton Published by Associated American Artists, New York LITERATURE: Fath 41, The Lithographs of Thomas Hart Benton, Austin, and London, 1969 and 1979, no. 41, p. 102, illus. p. 103. The artwork is in excellent condition. Named after his great-uncle, a five-term senator, Thomas Hart Benton was born on April 15, 1889, in Neosho, Missouri. His father, Maecenus Eason Benton, was a lawyer and a United States representative from 1896 to 1904, so the young Benton spent his early years in both Washington, DC, and southwest Missouri. Benton dropped out of high school at 17 and started working as a cartoonist for the Joplin American newspaper. His mother, Elizabeth Wise Benton, was supportive of his artistic ambitions, but Benton’s father enrolled him in the Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois, in 1906 before agreeing to allow him to attend the Art Institute of Chicago in 1907. The following year Benton traveled to Paris and studied at the Académie Julian. There he met California artist Stanton Macdonald-Wright (American, 1890 - 1973) and began to experiment with Macdonald-Wright’s synchromist style of abstract painting. In 1911 he returned to the United States and settled in New York. He taught briefly at the Chelsea Neighborhood Association, where he met his future wife, Rita Piacenza, one of his students. During World War I Benton served at the naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, where he made illustrations for a catalog of ships and military equipment. After the war Benton went back to New York, and in 1922 he married Piacenza. The couple was married for 53 years and had two children. They regularly spent summers on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Benton’s work until the early 1920s was generally modernist and often abstract. In 1924, however, Benton traveled to Missouri to see his sick father. Returning to his home state inspired him to reclaim his midwestern roots and break with modernism, focusing instead on American rural subjects such as life in steel mills, logging camps, coal mines, and cotton fields. Because of his leftist political leanings he championed working class people and represented them as heroes in his paintings and murals. Benton began to paint in a naturalistic style that was influenced by the Spanish master El Greco (Greek, 1541 - 1614), and he became known as the most innovative practitioner of mural painting in a decade of great importance for this medium in America. He completed monumental mural...
Category

1940s Post-War Thomas Hart Benton Art

Materials

Lithograph

Thomas Hart Benton art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Thomas Hart Benton available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Thomas Hart Benton in lithograph, paper, ink and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large Thomas Hart Benton, so small editions measuring 7 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of David Klein, Benton Murdoch Spruance, and Adolf Dehn. Thomas Hart Benton prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $100 and tops out at $8,017, while the average work can sell for $5,000.

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