Schoelkopf Gallery is pleased to present Thomas Hart Benton: Where Does the West Begin?, an exhibition of 48 paintings and works on paper drawn principally from the rich holdings of The Thomas Hart Benton Trust. On view from October 18 through December 6, 2024, the exhibition will explore Benton’s numerous travels westward in search of “America in its entirety.” The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated scholarly catalogue featuring an essay by Lauren Kroiz, Associate Professor in the History of Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley, and award-winning author of Cultivating Citizens: The Work of Art in the New Deal Era (University of California Press, 2018).
The grandeur of America’s West has captivated American artists for generations. Epic canvases painted by Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt in the 1860s accelerated late 19th century migration and created indelible images of this country’s majestic mountain ranges and vast open prairie lands. These spectacular works served as a siren’s song for the second generation of westward expansion and informed American policy resulting in the creation of America’s first national parks.
Benton’s singular approach to painting the West began in 1920 and continued in earnest for the next five decades of the artist’s storied and prolific career. During his travels to the West, Benton observed the landscape directly, capturing his wonderment of vast expanses and imposing mountains. Benton’s dynamic, sweeping compositions of the West represent his physical experience of the land, and the limitless possibilities that land represented.
In Fall 2023, Schoelkopf Gallery announced the exclusive worldwide representation of The Thomas Hart Benton Trust. Thomas Hart Benton: Where Does the West Begin? is the first dedicated exhibition Schoelkopf Gallery presents following this news, and the gallery will continue to share the artist's transformative journey and lasting contributions to the development of 20th-century modernism through future exhibitions and programming.
