Thomas Hart Benton 1889-1975
81.6 x 122.9 cm
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by the Thomas Hart Benton Catalogue Raisonné Foundation. Committee Members: Dr. Henry Adams, Anthony Benton Gude, Andrew Thompson and Michael Owen.
Among the most important paintings ever executed by Thomas Hart Benton, Sugar Cane is the only known finished oil painting devoted to the cultivation of sugar cane, a subject Benton encountered firsthand during a 1943 journey through southern Louisiana. Benton had made extended road trips central to his artistic practice since the 1920s, seeking out distinctly American landscapes and forms of labor, but this was his first sustained engagement with the sugar-producing region along the lower Mississippi River. There, he sketched the various stages of cultivation and harvest, carefully recording the workers, mule-drawn wagons, derrick cranes, mills, and specialized tools of the industry. He brought these observations together in Sugar Cane, transforming a contemporary wartime subject into a dynamic Louisiana landscape.
The painting is also a demonstration of Benton’s technical process. Beginning with an underpainting in distemper, an ancient medium he described as “color ground in glue water,” he subsequently applied egg tempera and oil glazes, adapting Renaissance methods to a thoroughly modern American subject. Across the canvas, workers harvesting cane, a mule-drawn water cart, and the angular derrick crane are integrated into the lush, undulating landscape. Their verticals and diagonals exemplify Benton’s theory of the “bump and the hollow,” creating a sense of continuous movement across the picture. In Sugar Cane, firsthand observation, Renaissance technique, and formal experimentation converge in one of Benton’s most distinctive depictions of American labor and the Southern landscape.
Provenance
The artist; toThe Thomas Hart and Rita Piacenza Benton Testamentary Trusts
Exhibitions
The University of Kansas Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas, Thomas Hart Benton, April 12–May 18, 1958, no. 44
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; and the Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee, Thomas Hart Benton: An Artist’s Selection, 1908–1974, October 12, 1974–January 7, 1975, no. 28
Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, organized by the Mid-America Arts Alliance; Department of Parks and Recreation, St. Louis, Missouri; Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska; Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City; Wichita Art Center, Kansas; Spiva Art Center, Joplin, Missouri; Charles H. MacNider Museum, Mason City, Iowa; David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Illinois; The Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, Arkansas; Springfield Art Museum, Missouri; Huntsville Museum of Art, Alabama; Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, Tennessee; Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, Minnesota, Benton's Bentons: Selections from The Thomas Hart Benton and Rita P. Benton Trusts, July 13, 1980-June 26, 1983, no. 17
Schoelkopf Gallery, New York, 25 | 250: A Celebration of American Art Part I, January 16—February 28, 2026Edith C. Blum Art Institute, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Center Gallery, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania; Queens Museum, New York; Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York, Thomas Hart Benton: Chronicler of America's Folk Heritage, November 3, 1984–July 6, 1985The Boise Gallery of Art, Idaho; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska; Yellowstone Art Center, Billings, Montana; Utah Museum of Fine Arts; Cheney Cowels Memorial Museum, Spokane, Washington; Lakeview Museum of Art & Sciences, Peoria, Illinois; Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, Nashville, Tennessee; Center for the Arts, Vero Beach, Florida; Albany Museum of Art, Georgia; Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi; and Springfield Art Museum, Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton: An Intimate View, 1986-1988
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, Benton's America: Works on Paper and Selected Paintings, January 19–March 2, 1991, no. 89
Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada; University Art Museum, University of Southwest Louisiana, Lafayette, Louisiana; Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, Minnesota; Louisiana Arts and Science Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Museum of Art Tallahassee (now The Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science), Florida; Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, Mississippi; Springfield Museums, Massachusetts; York College Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington; Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee; Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana, On the Road with Thomas Hart Benton: Images of a Changing America, February 8, 1998-March 18, 2001
Literature
Matthew Baigell, Thomas Hart Benton, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1973, pl. 155, as dated 1943, oil and tempera on canvas mounted on panelMatthew Baigell, Thomas Hart Benton: New Concise NAL Edition, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1974, illus. on the frontispiece, as dated 1943, oil and tempera on canvas mounted on panel
Thomas Hart Benton and Ralph T. Coe, Thomas Hart Benton: An Artist's Selection, 1908—1974, The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum Bulletin, Vol. V, No. 2, Kansas City, Missouri, 1974, no. 29
Elizabeth Broun, Douglas Hyland, and Marilyn Stokstad, Benton’s Bentons: Selections from the Thomas Hart Benton and Rita P. Benton Trusts, Lawrence, Kansas: Spencer Museum of Art, 1980, pl. I, pp. 49, illus. in color, no. 17, 59, no. 49, 71
Linda Weintraub, Matthew Baigell, Archie Green, Alan Buechner, Thomas Hart Benton: Chronicler of America's Folk Heritage, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York: Bard College, 1984, pp. 41, illus. in color, 78Henry Adams, Thomas Hart Benton: An Intimate View, Kansas City, Missouri: The Lowell Press, Inc., with Smith Kramer Art Connections, 1986, pp. 16, illus. in color, 21, 35, as dated 1943
J. Richard Gruber, Thomas Hart Benton and The American South, Augusta, Georgia: Morris Museum of Art, 1998, pp. 46, illus. in color, 56, 58
Gerry Souter, American Realism, United Kingdom: Parkstone International, 2015, illus. in color
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