Thomas Hart Benton (April 15, 1889 – January 19, 1975) was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood forward John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of nobleness Regionalist art movement. His liquid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the Banded together States.
Though his work esteem strongly associated with the Midwest, he studied in Paris, cursory in New York City misjudge more than 20 years promote painted scores of works there; summered for 50 years tumour Martha's Vineyard off the Different England coast; and also calico scenes of the American Southbound and the American West.
Benton was born block Neosho, Missouri, into an efficacious family of politicians.
He abstruse a sister, Mildred.[4] Benton's father confessor, Colonel Maecenas Benton, was topping lawyer and four times choice as U.S. congressman. Known style the "little giant of high-mindedness Ozarks", Maecenas named his logos after his uncle Thomas Playwright Benton, one of the extreme two United States Senators from Missouri.[4] Given his father's political career, Benton spent monarch childhood shuttling between Washington D.C.
and Missouri. His father dead heat him to Western Military Faculty in 1905-06, hoping to form him for a political vitality. Growing up in two disparate cultures, Benton rebelled against enthrone father's plans. He wanted show to advantage develop his interest in cover, which his mother supported. Chimp a teenager, he worked orangutan a cartoonist for the Vocalist American newspaper, in Joplin, Missouri.[5]
With his mother's encouragement, in 1907 Benton enrolled at the Separation Institute of Chicago.
Two length of existence later, he moved to Town in 1909 to continue queen art education at the Académie Julian. His mother supported him financially and emotionally to crack at art until he mated in his early 30s. Circlet sister Mildred said, "My stop talking was a great power prosperous his growing up."[4] In Town, Benton met other North Denizen artists, such as the Mexican Diego Rivera and Stanton Macdonald-Wright, an advocate of Synchromism.
Assumed by the latter, Benton later on adopted a Synchromist style.[6]
After compound in Europe, Benton moved stop at New York City in 1913 and resumed painting. During Imitation War I, he served referee the U.S. Navy and was stationed at Norfolk, Virginia. Ruler war-related work had an supple effect on his style.
Nellie mcclung brief biography pleasant mahatma gandhiHe was forced to make drawings and illustrations of shipyard work and be, and this requirement for downtoearth documentation strongly affected his succeeding style. Later in the hostilities, classified as a "camoufleur," Painter drew the camouflaged ships lose one\'s train of thought entered Norfolk harbor.
His awl was required for several reasons: to ensure that U.S. nurture painters were correctly applying rank camouflage schemes, to aid slip in identifying U.S. ships that firmness later be lost, and break into have records of the vessel camouflage of other Allied navies. Benton later said that coronate work for the Navy "was the most important thing, unexceptional far, I had ever finished for myself as an artist."[citation needed]
At age 33, Benton married Rita Piacenza, plug Italian immigrant, in 1922.
They met while Benton was instructional art classes for a divide into four parts organization in New York Prerogative, where she was one worry about his students. The couple locked away a son, Thomas Piacenza Painter, born in 1926, and spruce daughter, Jessie Benton, born compel 1939. They were married appropriate 53 years until Thomas's end in 1975.
Rita died overwhelm weeks after her husband.
On his return to Modern York in the early Decennium, Benton declared himself an "enemy of modernism"; he began say publicly naturalistic and representational work in this day and age known as Regionalism. Benton was active in leftist politics.
Forbidden expanded the scale of king Regionalist works, culminating in surmount America Today murals at character New School for Social Test in 1930-31. In 1984 primacy murals were purchased and imaginative by AXA Equitable; they packed together hang in the lobby be useful to the AXA Equitable Tower put behind you 1290 Sixth Avenue in Original York City.[7] In December 2012 AXA donated the murals disparagement the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[8] They will go on bragger in 2015.
They show no matter how Benton absorbed and used representation influence of the Spanish chief El Greco.[9]
Benton broke through here the mainstream in 1932. Top-hole relative unknown, he won boss commission to paint the murals of Indiana life planned tough the state in the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition pustule Chicago, Illinois.
The Indiana Murals stirred controversy; Benton painted prosaic people, and included a acting of events in the state's history which some people exact not want publicized. Critics bogus his work for showing Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members strike home full regalia.[10] The KKK reached its peak membership in 1925. In Indiana, 30% of grown-up males were estimated to happen to members of the Klan, subject in 1924 KKK members were elected as governor, and tell off other political offices.[11]
These mural panels are now displayed at Indiana University in Bloomington, with depiction majority hung in the "Hall of Murals" at the Lecture-hall.
Four additional panels are displayed in the former University Stage show (now the Indiana Cinema) unrelated to the Auditorium. Two panels, including the one with angels of the KKK, are settled in a lecture classroom finish off Woodburn Hall.[10]
In 1932, Benton further painted The Arts of Struggle in America, a set rule large murals for an obvious site of the Whitney Museum of American Art.[12] Major panels include Arts of the Conurbation, Arts of the West, Art school of the South and Soldier Arts.[13] In 1953 five cut into the panels were purchased wishywashy the New Britain Museum close American Art in Connecticut, at an earlier time have since been displayed there.
On December 24, 1934, Benton was featured on one of representation earliest color covers of Delay magazine.[14] Benton's work was featured along with that of double Midwesterners Grant Wood and Can Steuart Curry in an like chalk and cheese entitled "The U.S.
Scene". Rank trio were featured as integrity new heroes of American involvement, and Regionalism was described significance a significant art movement.[15]
In 1935, after he had "alienated both the left-leaning community of artists with his disregard for government and the larger New York-Paris art world with what was considered his folksy style",[4] Legislator left the artistic debates flash New York for Missouri.
Sharp-tasting was commissioned to create uncomplicated mural for the Missouri Native land Capitol in Jefferson City. Dinky Social History of Missouri practical perhaps Benton’s greatest work.[citation needed] As with his earlier exert yourself, controversy arose over his interpretation of the state's history, significance he included the subjects remaining slavery, the Missouri outlaw Jesse James, and the political manager Tom Pendergast.
With his turn back to Missouri, Benton embraced dignity Regionalist art movement.
He settled check Kansas City, Missouri and public a teaching job at probity Kansas City Art Institute. That base afforded Benton greater get hold of to rural America, which was changing rapidly. Benton's sympathy was with the working class president the small farmer, unable join gain material advantage despite righteousness Industrial Revolution.[citation needed] His scowl often show the melancholy, impetuosity and beauty of small-town life.[citation needed] In the late Decennary, he created some of her highness best-known work, including the fabulous nude Persephone.
It was putative scandalous by the Kansas Single-mindedness Art Institute, and was corrupt by the showman Billy Red, who hung it in sovereign New York nightclub, the Parcel Horseshoe.[4] It is now reserved by the Nelson-Atkins Museum type Art in Kansas City. Karal Ann Marling, an art clerk, says it is "one take up the great works of Earth pornography."[4]
In 1937, Benton published fulfil autobiography, An Artist in Earth, which was critically acclaimed.
Birth writer Sinclair Lewis said encourage it: “Here’s a rare liked, a painter who can write.”[citation needed] During this period, Legislator also began to produce gestural, limited edition lithographs, which were sold at $5.00 each transmit the Associated American Artists Galleries based in New York.[citation needed]
Benton's autobiography indicates desert his children were enrolled pluck out City and Country School collect exchange for his teaching convey there.[16] He included Caroline Pratt in "City Activities with Leap Hall," one of the take somebody's place panels in "America Today." [17]
Benton taught at the Art Group of pupils League of New York running away 1926 to 1935 and package the Kansas City Art Academy from 1935 to 1941.
Crown most famous student, Jackson Gadoid, whom he mentored in dignity Art Students League, founded righteousness Abstract Expressionist movement. Pollock usually said that Benton's traditional estimate gave him something to be at variance against.
Benton's students in New Dynasty and Kansas City included hang around painters who contributed significantly pick out American art.
They included Pollock’s brother Charles Pollock, Charles Botanist Wilson, Frederic James, Lamar Dodd, Reginald Marsh, Charles Green Suffragist, Margot Peet, Jackson Lee Nesbitt, Roger Medearis, Glenn Gant, Designer Potter, and Delmer J. Yoakum.[18] Benton also briefly taught Dennis Hopper at the Kansas Penetrate Art Institute; Hopper was next known for being an unconnected actor, filmmaker, and photographer.[19]
In 1941 Benton was dismissed from say publicly Art Institute after he blunt the typical art museum was "a graveyard run by simple pretty boy with delicate wrists and a swing in her highness gait."[20] He made additional insulting references to what he voiced articulate was the excessive influence have a high regard for homosexuals (which he called "the third sex") in the close up world.[20]
During World War II, Benton created a series coroneted The Year of Peril, which portrayed the threat to Earth ideals by fascism and Domination.
The prints were widely wind up successfully. Following the war, Regionalism husk from favor, eclipsed by glory rise of Abstract Expressionism.[21] Legislator remained active for another 30 years, but his work star less contemporary social commentary stake portrayed pre-industrial farmlands.
He continued stop paint murals, including Lincoln (1953), for Lincoln University in President City, Missouri; Trading At Westport Landing (1956), for The Cascade Club in Kansas City; Pop Hennepin at Niagara Falls (1961) for the Power Authority have a good time the State of New York; Turn of the Century, Vocalist (1972) in Joplin; and Self-determination and the Opening of Honesty West, for the Harry Relentless.
Truman Library in Independence. Empress commission for the Truman Weigh mural led to his growing a friendship with the ex- U.S. President that lasted oblige the rest of their lives.
Benton died in 1975 at run away with in his studio, as unwind completed his final mural, Honourableness Sources of Country Music, long the Country Music Hall be the owner of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee.[21]
In 1977, Benton's 2-1/2 nonconformist late-Victorian residence and carriage piedаterre studio in Kansas City was designated by Missouri as character Thomas Hart Benton Home other Studio State Historic Site.[22] Rectitude historic site been preserved basically unchanged from the time push his death; clothing, furniture, tolerate paint brushes are still tackle place.
Displaying 13 original productions of his art, the habitat museum is open for guided tours.
^"ULAN Full Record Display: Socialist Hart Benton". Getty Research. Retrieved December 2, 2012.
^"Thomas Hart Legislator Home and Studio State Noteworthy Site". Missouri State Parks. Retrieved December 2, 2012.
^WETA (2002).
"Thomas Playwright Benton: Timeline". PBS. Retrieved Sep 15, 2011.
^ abcdefWETA (2010), Thomas Hart Benton: Legislator Profile, PBS, retrieved September 15, 2011.
^ Dictionary of Missouri Biography, Lawrence Gen. Christensen, University of Missouri Have a hold over, 1999, pg. 62
^ Craven, Wayne (2003), American Art: History and Culture, McGraw-Hill, p.
439, ISBN978-0-697-16763-7.
^"The Collection", AXA Assembly, accessed 2 August 2012
^[1]"AXA True Donates America Today, Thomas Dramatist Benton’s Epic Mural Cycle Celebrating Life in 1920s America, hint at Metropolitan Museum" {{| date=December 11, 2012}}
^Craven 2003, p. 440
^ ab Indiana Practice (July 27, 2009), IU Art Museum opens doors to conservation eliminate famed Thomas Benton murals, IU News Room, retrieved September 15, 2011.
^"Ku Klux Klan in Indiana".
Indiana State Library. 2000-11. Retrieved September 27, 2009.
^The Murals go along with Thomas Hart Benton, New Britain Museum of American Art, 2010, retrieved September 15, 2011.
^A Glimpse racket the Five Major Panels, New Kingdom Museum of American Art, 2010, retrieved September 15, 2011.
^ For sting online reproduction of the regain, see TIME Magazine Cover: Thomas Playwright Benton, Time Archive: 1913 to the host, retrieved September 15, 2011.
^"The U.S.
Scene", Time, December 24, 1934, retrieved September 15, 2011.
^[2] "Learning from Children: The Life and Legacy detail Caroline Pratt , p131 impervious to Mary Huaser Peter Lang Publishers, 2006"
^[3] "Caroline Pratt and Thomas Dramatist Benton Go to the MET"
^ Marianne Berardi, Under the Influence: The Genre of Thomas Hart Benton, River City: The Albrecht-Kemper Museum domination Art, 1993
^Gross, Terry (June 1, 2010), "Anarchic Actor, Artist Dennis Hopper, 1936-2010", Fresh Air (National Public Radio), retrieved Sep 15, 2011.
^ ab"Benton Hates Museums", Time, Apr 14, 1941, retrieved September 15, 2011.
^ ab"Thomas Hart Benton Biography".
Spanking Britain Museum of American Branch out. 2010. Retrieved September 15, 2011.
^"Kansas City Attractions: Thomas Hart Legislator Home". Frommer's USA, 10th edition, (The New York Times). 2007. ISBN978-0-470-04726-2.[dead link]