biography of Thomas Hart BENTON (1889-1975)

Birth place: Neosho, MO

Death place: Kansas City, MO

Addresses: Kansas City, MO, from 1935

Profession: Painter, writer, muralist painter, teacher

Studied: AIC, 1906-1907; Acad. Julian, Paris, France, 1908-11: Univ. Missouri, hon. D.F.A., 1948; Lincoln Univ., hon. Litt.D., 1957; New School Social Research, hon. D.F.A., 1968.

Exhibited: Forum Exh., NYC, 1916; PAFA, 1924, 1930-45 (Beck gold medal 1943); Arch. Lg., 1933 (gold med.); Am. Inst. Architects (gold med.); Wanamaker's Exh., NYC, 1934 (prize); Corcoran Gal., 1935-45; WMAA, 1939 (solo), 1940, 1942, 1941(solo), 1969 (retrospective); Assoc. Am. Artists, NYC; Univ. Kansas, 1958; Univ. Arizona, 1962 (traveling retrospective); Cranbrook Acad. Fine Art, 1966 (retrospective).

Member: Hon. mem. Acad Bellas Artes; Am. Acad. Arts & Sciences; NAD.

Work: State Historical Soc. of Missouri (The Year of the Peril" series); Univ. of Kansas Mus. Art, Lawrence; MMA; MoMA; BM; PAFA; SFMA; National Portr. Gallery; AGAA; Nelson-Atkins Mus. Art, Kansas City, MO; Univ. Missouri, Columbia; Wanamaker Gallery Collection; during the 1930s he helped to popularize mural painting; among his major mural commissions were those at the Missouri State Capitol, 1935-1936; the "America Today" murals for the New School for Social Research, NYC,1930; "The Arts of Life in America," murals for WMAA, 1932, now relocated to the New Britain (CT) Mus. of American Art; "A Social History of the State of Indiana," murals for the Century of Progress, Chicago, 1933, now relocated to Indiana Univ. Auditorium, Bloomington; others include: "Achelous & Hercules," Harzfeld Dept Store, Kansas City, MO, 1947; Lincoln Univ., 1952-1953; NY State Power Auth., Massens, 1957-61; Truman Library, Independence, MO, 1958-61. Note: Much of early work was destroyed in a 1913 fire."

Comments: One of the central figures of the Regionalist art movement of the 1930s, along with Grant Wood and John S. Curry. Early career was spent studying and working in Chicago, Paris, and New York (1912-34), absorbing and experimenting with various modernist styles, including Fauvism, Cubism, and Synchromism. During the 1920s he rejected these as being too esoteric and inaccessible for the general public, and set out to formulate a populist art in which the style and content would be for and about Americans. Taking his subject matter from American social history and folklore, Benton developed a dynamic, rhythmic, figurative style that was meant to draw viewers into the narrative. In 1942, paintings from Benton's anti-fascist series The Year of the Peril," were reproduced by the U.S. government in the form of millions of stamps, posters, and cards. Benton was also a teacher (Jackson Pollock was among his students) and a prolific writer about his theories. Teaching: ASL, 1926-36; dir. dept. painting, Kansas City Art Inst. & Sch. Design, 1935-40. Author: An Artist in America (McBride, 1937 & Univ. Mo. Press, 1983); Drawings 1968, Univ. Mo. Press; Thirty Years' View, or, a History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820-1850, Greenwood, Vols I & II, 1968; An American in Art: a Professional and Technical Autobiography, Univ. Kans. Press, 1969.

Sources: WW73; WW47; Matthew Baigell, Thomas Hart Benton (New York: Abrams, 1974); Henry Adams, Thomas Hart Benton: An American Original (New York: Knopf, 1989); Erika Doss, Benton, Pollock, and the Politics of Modernism: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991); CÈcile Whiting, "American Heroes and Invading Barbarians: The Regionalist Response to Fascism," Prospects, vol.13, 1988: 295-325; P&H Samuels, 40-41."