Thomas Hart Benton 1889-1975
26.7 x 49.5 cm
Benton also repeatedly traveled in the West, particularly the diverse landscape of Wyoming…. Alongside this “grand” scenery of Wyoming’s Southern Rockies, Benton continued depicting the state’s Great Plains. This experience of representing the varied West proved to be a life-giving challenge for Benton. Looking back on his career at seventy-four, Benton explained: “I wouldn’t stop painting ’cause there’s always something I’ve got to learn yet. Just mere problems of drawings; there are always some things you can’t do, and there’s always a draftsman who did it better. So your life is full.”[1] The artist wrote that he felt at peace, having learned artistic practice was its own reward; “The only way an artist can personally fail is to quit work.”[2]
—Lauren Kroiz, excerpt from Thomas Hart Benton: Where Does the West Begin?, Schoelkopf Gallery, 2024
[1] Homer Brown, “The Work of Art’: An Interview with Thomas Hart Benton, Part 2,” recorded May 6, 1962, Missouri Historical Review 108, no. 1, (October 2013): 8.
[2] There are four editions of Benton’s 1937 autobiography. He authored new chapter updates appended at the end “After” (1951 edition) and “And Still After” (1968 edition), both are included in the posthumous edition that I cite: Thomas Hart Benton, “And Still After,” An Artist in America, (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989), p. 369
Provenance
The artist; toThe Thomas Hart and Rita Piacenza Benton Testamentary Trusts
Exhibitions
Albrecht Gallery of Art, St. Joseph, Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton, February 5–March 1, 1970
Edith 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, 1985, no. 20Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, Benton's America: Works on Paper and Selected Paintings, January 19–March 2, 1991, p. 63, no. 91, fig. 30, illus. in color p. 41, as oil on Masonite
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, no. 49
Literature
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, p. 79, as n.d.J. Richard Gruber, Thomas Hart Benton and The American South, Augusta, Georgia: Morris Museum of Art, 1998, p. 58, as oil on board
The gallery is open Monday through Friday, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. We are located at 390 Broadway, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10013.