Thomas Hart Benton

John Steuart Curry

Charles Albert Morgenthaler

Frederick E. Shane

Grant Wood

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American Regionalism: Visions from the Heartland

Thomas Hart Benton

American, 1889–1975

Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri, in 1889. After studying painting briefly in Chicago, he traveled to Paris and enrolled in the Académie Julian (1908–1911). In the 1930s, he became one of the leaders of the American Regionalist movement, working in a representational style that focused attention on everyday people living in America and often represented scenes from the lives of poor and rural people in the Midwest. He has been called the leading exponent of American Regionalism. Sculptural forms, undulating lines, and rhythmic gesture characterize his style.

Study for Colleges and City Life from the mural Cultural Progress

This drawing is a study for a portion of the twelve-by-twenty-foot Cultural Progress mural designed for the Indiana exhibition at the 1933 Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. The mural is now housed in the Indiana University Auditorium, Bloomington, Indiana.

Benton approached the problem of mural design systematically, borrowing techniques from Renaissance painters such as Michelangelo and Tintoretto. Like these old masters, he squared his finished compositional studies for transfer. In this particular case, the artist ruled a grid over his drawing and made a proportionally larger grid on his mural panel. This grid allowed Benton to accurately copy sections of his drawing onto the soon-to-be painted surface of the mural.

Thomas Hart Benton
American (1889–1975)
Study for Colleges and City Life
from the mural Cultural Progress
1933
Pencil on buff paper
(84.85)
Gift of Dr. Harry B. Cohen

Haystack

By producing lithographs in multiple impressions, Benton made his images available to people unable to afford his more expensive paintings. Like many of his prints, Haystack was distributed in an edition of 250 by Associated American Artists (AAA), an organization founded in 1934 by New York art dealers Reeves Lewenthal and Maurice Leiderman. AAA “democratized art” by selling the prints of established artists, such as Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, and John Steuart Curry, through mail order catalogs and magazine advertisements, usually for five dollars apiece.

Thomas Hart Benton
American (1889–1975)
Haystack
1938
Lithograph
(93.14)
Gift of Mrs. D.A. Ross

Illustrated Letter to Fred Shane

Thomas Hart Benton was a friend and associate of Fred Shane. In this letter to Shane, Benton includes an informal, comic self-portrait. The caricature represents Benton holding up a sign that reads, “Unfair to Disorganized Immorality.” Next to the drawing, the artist has written the words, “This is my chest swollen with righteous indignation.”

It is unclear exactly why Benton portrayed himself in this manner, although the artist may be representing his reaction to various controversies brought on by his outrageous statements to the press.

Planting, also titled Spring Plowing

This lithograph repeats the composition of Benton’s 1939 painting Planting. In this image, a man turns the soil using a mule-drawn wooden plow while a woman scatters seeds onto the ground behind him. The picture reflects the continued use of pre-industrial agricultural technology in rural, Depression-era America. In 1969, Benton stated that this view was a “common enough scene up to very lately–maybe it is still found. Old ways don’t die easily.”

Down the River

Benton often portrayed inhabitants of rural America participating in popular leisure activities. In this lithograph, Benton represents a “float” trip, a typical recreational activity for Missourians. Preliminary drawings for the scene were made while Benton was on a float trip in the Ozarks.

In the foreground, an older man and a boy (Benton's son, T.P. Benton) travel down a river in a johnboat. The man rows the small boat, while the youth, wearing a large straw hat, fishes. In the distance, two other figures guide their boat down the same winding river.

In The Lithographs of Thomas Hart Benton, Benton explained how the image related to his own life:

Twice yearly, spring and autumn, I have floated these rivers for many years, fishing, camping out on the sand and gravel bars and just watching the river banks go by.

Shallow Creek

This lithograph repeats the composition of Benton’s 1938 painting, Shallow Creek. In 1969, Benton stated that the picture was based on a drawing of his son, T.P. Benton, wading in an Ozark creek.

The Fence Mender

Benton repeatedly depicted rural Americans performing tasks that were required for the daily upkeep of their farms and/or property. In Fence Mender, a man repairs a barbed wire fence, a structure that controls the movements of farm animals and serves as a barrier to predators and trespassers.

In The Lithographs of Thomas Hart Benton, Benton commented on the image:

Common scenes where there are barbed wire fences. This one was found in middle Nebraska in 1939 on the trip where the horses were bought for the French light artillery.

Thomas Hart Benton
American (1889–1975)
The Fence Mender
1940
Lithograph, edition of 250
(80.188)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. D.A. Ross

Slow Train through Arkansas

In Slow Train through Arkansas, based on one of Benton’s earlier paintings, rural life and modern technology clash. A train is compelled to stop and wait for a farmer to coax his cows off railroad tracks in rural Arkansas. Although human beings try to shape the landscape, they cannot always control animals or other natural forces.

Old Man Reading

As a Regionalist, Thomas Hart Benton often chose to make portraits of everyday people rather than prosperous patrons. The artist created unglamorous, straightforward images of people with little money who would not ordinarily have their portraits made.

While teaching at the Kansas City Art Institute, Benton sometimes asked his students to help him find interesting models in the local community. The man pictured in Old Man Reading was discovered in a small town near Kansas City. Benton originally made a painting of the man directly from life and later copied the composition in this lithograph.

Thomas Hart Benton
American (1889–1975)
Old Man Reading
1941
Lithograph
(93.13)
Gift of Mrs. D.A. Ross

The Race

In this lithograph, published by Associated American Artists, Benton represents a confrontation between nature and industry in rural America. A horse gallops across a landscape, while telegraph poles and a speeding locomotive reflect the encroaching influence of technology and commerce. In 1944, Benton repeated this composition in a painting. He described the image as follows:

Common enough scene in the days of the steam engine. Why did horses so often run with the steam trains while they now pay no attention to the diesels?

Portrait of a Musician

The model for Portrait of a Musician was a jazz bassist who played in a Kansas City nightclub Benton frequented in the 1940s. The painter was interested in representing African-American culture in Missouri, and he particularly enjoyed drawing and painting jazz players and folk musicians. Sculptural forms, exaggerated gestures, and undulating lines characterize Benton’s style, and here he repeats the curved shape of the bass in the rhythmic contours of the musician’s face, hands and body. This repetition of forms becomes a visual metaphor for the jazz music the bassist plays.

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