72201. West Building Young Tom Benton grew up with an instinct for constituencies that led him to assess art on the basis of its audience appeal. Although he later spent much time in cities (Washington, D.C., Chicago, Paris, New York), he never forgot his rural roots. All Rights Reserved. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rambling about the backwoods of Newton County, Benton experienced a lifestyle largely unchanged since the 1890s. The following year, Benton returned with yet another group of students. She supported him financially until he was in his thirties. We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. "Thomas Hart Benton Artist Overview and Analysis". MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. The politician was an important advocate of the westward expansion of the United States, and he was also the first person to serve five terms as a senator and one of the few people to serve in the House of Representatives after having served as a senator. Bentons ashes were buried beneath a tree on the property where he and his wife would summer on Marthas Vineyard. A remarkable musician, T.P. It was the untutored art lovers who loved Mr. Benton's work the most, with its vigorous strokes and vivid colors, and toward the end of his life a painting of his would fetch up to $25,000. Here, a multi-racial labor force - this in itself is modern and utopian image because of heavily segregated labor in America - busily build the city. Benton died of a heart attack on January 19, 1975, in Kansas City, just after putting the finishing touches on a large mural for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. Additional support provided by the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation Inc. (233.7 297.2 cm)j: 17 1/8 97 in. The first time you log in to our catalog you will need to create an account. The CALS Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization. In contrast to these dramatic scenes of labor and struggle, Benton depicted in City Activities with Dance Hall and City Activities with Subway popular leisure-time activities during Prohibition (192033), particularly dancing (to jazz music) and drinking (illegal at the time). a: 92 in. Export from an artist page includes image if available, biography, notes, and bibliography. Because of his interest in American history and his family's deep roots in Missouri, Benton soon chose the American Historical Epic as a theme; his elongated figuration showing the influence of El Greco. The mural, which was titled The Sources of Country Music, intended to show the origins of a music that Benton loved. The last and smallest panel, Outreaching Hands, shows only hands reaching for bread and other hands holding money, allusions to the economic despair and inequity caused by the Great Depression, which began in 1929. As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. Edward Alden Jewell. Known as the Indiana Murals, Indiana wanted to portray the social and industrial history of the state, but instead, one of Benton's depictions caused outrage because it was a bit too honest. (233.7 406.4 cm)b: 92 in. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. Tom Benton was born on April 15, 1889, in Neosho, Missouri. BENTON, Thomas Hart, (father-in-law of John Charles Frmont, brother-in-law of James McDowell, great-uncle of Maecenas Eason Benton), A Senator and a Representative from Missouri; born at Harts Mill, near Hillsboro, N.C., March 14, 1782; attended Chapel Hill College (University of North Carolina); admitted to the bar at Nashville, Tenn., in 1806 and commenced practice in Franklin . "Lewd, immoral, obscenethe lowest expression of pure filth"-- wrote one critic in condemnation of Benton's interpretation of Susanna and the Elders. During this period Benton also completed oil paintings, including two classical nudes in midwestern settingsSusanna and the Elders (1938, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) and Persephone (19381939, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO)and more traditional regionalist subjects such as July Hay (1943, The Metropolitan Museum of Art). However, Bentons frequent controversial statements and harsh criticisms of the Kansas City art establishment resulted in his being fired from the Art Institute in 1941, and enemies frequently attacked his work for being vulgar and unpatriotic. Enter or exit from Constitution Avenue, 4th Street, or Madison Drive. There he met California artist Stanton Macdonald-Wright (American, 1890 - 1973) and began to experiment with Macdonald-Wrights synchromist style of abstract painting. It was his turn to depictions of everyday life of American and its people in a representational style that announced Benton's emergence as a mature artist. He decided to travel around the country to capture the daily life of Americans at work and play. M. E. was a lawyer and served as a congressman from 1897 until 1905. Gift of AXA Equitable, 2012, Accession Number: Benton later recalled that, "Politics was the core of our family life." In the early part of his career, Benton attempted to master several different styles of painting, including impressionism, pointillism, synchromism, and cubism. He completed monumental mural cycles for the New School for Social Research (America Today, 19301931, Metropolitan Museum of Art), the Whitney Museum of American Art (The Arts of Life in America, 1932, New Britain Museum of American Art), and the 1933 Chicago Worlds Fair (The Social History of Indiana, Indiana University), all of which aroused controversy because of their political content. The first child of Tom and Rita Benton, T.P. . Thomas Hart Benton, who in the late nineteentwenties and thirties boldly painted realistic portraits of American life that stirred considerable controversy, died last night at a hospital. The art world generally saw his folksy, rural, and realistic style as a reactionary response to most modern art movements. 7th St and Constitution Ave NW On his return three year later, and after a brief attempt, to settle in Kansas City, the young man came to New York where he remained for 23 years. In the 1920s, Benton traveled throughout these areas of the country, creating a body of studies from life, mostly in pencil, on which he based many of the details in America Today. He also painted Boomtown, now at the Rochester Museum; Cotton pickers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Rice Threshing at the Brooklyn Museum. In this scene, the men confer on their plan to blackmail the young Hebrew maiden. By Kathleen A. The couple was married for 53 years and had two children. He became politically prominent under President Grover Cleveland as United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri and subsequently served five terms the United States House of Representatives. Benton was influenced early in his career by a sketching trip he took through northwest Arkansas in 1926. Thomas Hart Bentonpainter, muralist, and writer from Missourideveloped, along with artists Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, a style of painting in the 1920s that became known as regionalism. Benton moved to New York City in 1912, where he struggled to make a living as an artist. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. 85 Recently Passed Away Celebrities and Famous People. Please. There, he was introduced to the great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, the ex-pat novelist Gertrude Stein, modernist John Marin, and various other Americans who attended the local cafes. Like many artists during the 1920s and 30s, Benton was involved with the political left and leftist artists' groups such as the John Reed Club. 9 ft. 9 in. Despite his popularity, some critics downplayed Benton's artistic talents, disapproving of his allegedly provincial aesthetics and subject matter and his unabashed rejection of abstraction. Date: 1975. Mr. Benton was a painter of enormous talent who believed that only by turning art to meaningful subject matter could America have an art that was not a bald imitation of the symbolic and abstract paintings that were then the vogue in Europe. Editorial Assistant Rachel High speaks to Randall Griffey, curator of the exhibition Thomas Hart Benton's America Today Mural Rediscovered and co-author of the accompanying Bulletin, about Benton's mural and the connections between his art and life. His forebears carved history in the wilderness and legislative halls of Missouri, which he vigorously depicted on canvas. Early works by Pollock echo the undulating forms and use of space evident here in his teacher's painting, and in fact, Pollock who was close to Benton and his family, modeled for the harmonica player in the foreground. The latest news, articles, and resources sent to your inbox weekly. This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Benton's frank and realistic treatment of the Susanna's body, rather than an idealized and sanitized version, breaks from the long tradition of classicizing the female body dating back to antiquities, and would have been radical and shocking to audiences at the time. When critics called his murals loud and disturbing, Benton defended his methods by noting, They represent the U.S. which is also loud and not in good taste.. In 1911 he returned to the United States and settled in New York. Bentons work until the early 1920s was generally modernist and often abstract. Seeger's son, the future folk legend Pete Seeger, said that he first heard the classic folk song "John Henry" when Benton played it for him. Rate and review titles you borrow and share your opinions on them. 11 ft. 2 1/2 in. America Today was acquired by AXA (then Equitable Life) in 1984, in support of efforts on the part of then-mayor Edward I. Koch and others to keep it intact and in New York City. An Italian immigrant and former student, she took an active role in Bentons career, handling all of his business affairs so he could focus on art. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. From Missouri, he spent most of his career there and in New York. Unconvinced that the teen was actually an artist, the men challenged him to apply for the cartoonist job open at the newspaper down the street. 1912 where he began exhibiting his works (then reminiscent of Synchromism), and fell under the influence of Marxism. The film was later shown at the park. He declared himself to be an enemy of modernism in the 1920s. (233.7 406.4 cm), The United States and Canada, 1900 A.D.-present, "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 20122014" The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 72, no. Benton took a train from New York to New Orleans, then went north by towboat on the Mississippi River. Benton returned to New York, but he became increasingly disillusioned with the art scene there. Dimensions: image: 10 x 12 3/4 inches (25.4 x 32.4 cm) sheet: 12 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches (31.8 x 39.4 cm) Classification: Prints. He also collected and catalogued popular music, and was friends with musicologist Charles Seeger. The mural was commissioned in 1930 by the New School's director Alvin Johnson. But the work was a great challenge to sell as a whole, increasing the likelihood that the panels would be dispersed. 2023 The Art Story Foundation. His large paintings have been known to sell for more than $500,000, while prints often run from $1,000 to $10,000. Williamstown, Mass. The largest America Today panel, Instruments of Power, is filled with enormous machines that embody modern industrial might. For the mural, Benton chose a theme from Greek mythology, the story of Achelous and Hercules, which he found in Bulfinch's Mythology - a book that recounted classical myths and stories from . The Principal Financial Groupis a proud partner in presenting these treasures to the American people. A short film, A Man and a River, which was produced under the auspices of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was made about a Buffalo River trip that Benton made in 1973. He sketched farmers working in their fields, church meetings, boys swimming, children in schoolhouses, and life around the town square. Thomas Hart Benton (April 15, 1889 - January 19, 1975) was an American painter and muralist. However, while Pollock claimed in his Oedipal battle with Benton that the elder artist served just as a force to rebel against, Pollock's own works show compositional similarities with those by Benton. Attesting to his widespread popularity, Benton was featured on the cover of the December 24, 1934 issue of Time magazine. 2012.478g: City Activities with Dancehall, Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item, Title: Thomas Hart Benton (American, Neosho, Missouri 18891975 Kansas City, Missouri), Medium: Major funding provided by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Associated American Artists Gallery in New York held a successful retrospective of Bentons work in 1939. He attended high school in Neosho in 190506, but he quit when he got a job drawing cartoons at The Joplin American newspaper. This trip, the first of many similar journeys throughout the United States, was significant in the development of Bentons artistic style. Born:March 14, 1782 Died:April 10, 1858 (age 76) Missouri Hometown:St. Louis Region of Missouri:St. Louis Category:Explorers and Settlers, Politicians Introduction Senator Thomas Hart Benton was a prominent lawyer and political leader during the first half of the 1800s. April 16, 2004, By Michael Brenson / Painted in Martha's Vineyard, in this work Benton renounces his earlier experimentation in cubist-inspired abstractions. The cause of death was not immediately determined. Based upon a popular folk song that Benton felt was representative of Missouri lore and mythology, the tale of Frankie and Johnny might have in fact concerned an incident. Thomas Hart Benton: A Featured Biography. Died: January 19, 1975 - Kansas City, Missouri Movements and Styles: American Regionalism , Synchromism Thomas Hart Benton Summary Accomplishments Important Art Biography Influences and Connections Useful Resources Similar Art and Related Pages Here, Benton classicized his own musculature, stressed the highly physical modern male body. The work demonstrates the difficulties of painting religious imagery and Biblical scenes with a contemporary vocabulary. After two years at the Art Institute, in 1909, he chose the familiar path traveled by numerous other American artists and relocated to Paris to study at the famed Academie Julian. During World War I, Benton was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, where he served as an architectural draftsman and painted camouflage for the Navy. Thomas Hart Benton Dies; Painter of American Scene, https://www.nytimes.com/1975/01/20/archives/thomas-hart-benton-dies-painter-of-american-scene-thomas-hart.html. 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. Benton was influenced early in his career by a sketching trip he took through northwest Arkansas in 1926. Additional support provided by the Arkansas General Assembly. Mr. Benton, who lived his final years in a comfortable farmhouse near Kansas City, was born of a family that is to Missouri what the Cabots are to Boston. Major support provided through a partnership with the Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism. But Benton wanted to study art, and was assisted with this by his mother, Elizabeth Benton, who helped send him to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago at the age of 18. Thomas Hart Benton Artworks View all 61 artworks Related Artists Paul Cezanne 1839 - 1906 Neither man could have anticipated that after Jackson was elected president, Benton as a Missouri Democrat would become his . A national membership group of museum friends who share a love of American art and craft. In 1924, however, Benton traveled to Missouri to see his sick father. By the 30s, Benton was considered a Regionalist, and had been commissioned to paint the first of many murals, which spawned controversy because of their politics. The President and the artist shared a similar affection for Missouri. The subject matter is taken from the Greek myth of how the goddess Persephone was abducted by Hades, but the setting in the painting is rural America with the craggy farmer taking the place of the god of the underworld. Sometimes I hate painting, but I keep at it, thinking always that before I croak I'll really learn how to do it - maybe as well as some of the old painters.". Catalogue Raisonn. 100 Rock Street But music still influenced his art. (233.7 341.6 cm)d: 92 in. During his career he taught at several major art schools, including the Art Students League of New York from 1926 to 1935 and the Kansas City Art Institute from 1935 to 1941. He sought to capture the American experience in a manner that made his art accessible to the mainstream public, an approach that put him at odds with other artists and critics. Entitled Independence and the Opening of the West, the work dominates the lobby of the library. His over-riding objective was to portray America's enemies as genocidal maniacs. 9 ft. 9 in. Enter and exit from 4th Street. His father was a surveyor and Revolutionary War veteran, and his mother was the . Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri in 1889. His fluid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the United States. Well known for his murals and portraits depicting everyday life, particularly in the Midwest, Benton authored two autobiographies, An Artist in America (1937) and An American in Art (1969). Oil and tempera on canvas mounted on panel - State Historical Society of Missouri, Colombia, Missouri. With his strong ego and stubbornness, Benton became a rather isolated persona-non-grata, even amongst his own field. There it remained until January 2012, when the company was asked to remove it to make way for a renovation. We are closed on December 25 and January 1. From the Winter 2016 issue of RA Magazine, issued quarterly to Friends of the RA. By visiting our website or transacting with us, you agree to this. The bawdiness of Benton's scenes of urban life connects them to the work of his friend Reginald Marsh (MMA 32.81.2), who recalled modeling for the figure of the African American construction worker in the City Building panel of America Today. The fluid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the United States. Acrylic on Canvas - The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Nashville, TN. Visiting Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty or Van Goghs Cypresses? Ten panels: Egg tempera with oil glazing over Permalba on a gesso ground on linen mounted to wood panels with a honeycomb interior, a: 92 in. Benton's rhythmic composition is evident in the undulating line made up of the six figures. When America Today was installed in the New School, these moldings echoed Art Deco details in Urban's building design. Decode imagery and discover hidden stories in artist William H. Johnson's, Exhibition invites viewers to discover the intersections and influences of video and sound, through works by some of todays leading contemporary artists. Go to Artist page. 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. T.P., as he was called, was 83. List of all 61 artworks by Thomas Hart Benton. When a tribute gift is given the honoree will receive a letter acknowledging your generosity and a bookplate will be placed in a book. With such fellow Midwesterners as John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, Mr. Benton became a practitioner of what became known in the Thirties as regionalism. It was a time when the nation concentrated on its own image. Oil on canvas - National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. While in Paris he met artists such as Diego Rivera and Stanford Macdonald-Wright, who influenced his sensibilities. The bright note of red at center brings attention to this pivotal figure that creates the tumultuous action within the canvas. He was encouraged to take on the ambitious project by famous country music singer, Tex Ritter, who suggested that he paint . The National Gallery of Art serves the nation by welcoming all people to explore and experience art, creativity, and our shared humanity. Gwen's River City Images via Flickr // CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. Named after his great-uncle, a five-term senator, Thomas Hart Benton was born on April 15, 1889, in Neosho, Missouri. Answer (1 of 4): American painter Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) started as a modernist painter before turning against it in the 1920s and becoming an important Regionalist painter and printmaker. America Today, Artist: 13 ft. 4 in. Distemper, egg tempera, and oil glaze on linen - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY. While in Paris, he became acquainted with the great Mexican artist, Diego Rivera, and also, was greatly inspired by the American painter Stanton Macdonald-Wright, the founder of Synchromism.
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