Thomas Hart Benton Art

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

'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...

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...

Thomas Hart Benton Arkansas Evening (or Nebraska Evening) 1941 Lithograph on paper Image: 10 h x 13 w in (25 x 33 cm) Sheet: 12.5 h x 16.5 w in (32 x 42 cm) Signed to lower right 'Benton'. This work is from the edition of 250 published by Associated American Artists, NY. Literature: Fath 45 Condition: Excellent 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...

Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) White Calf - 1945 Lithograph on paper, signed in pencil lower right From the edition of 250. Published by Associated American Artists, New York, with f...

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 ...

A superb, strong impression of this lithograph. The the edition of 250. Signed in pencil by Benton, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists...