Wednesday, May 10, 2022 – FROM A GRIM DOWAGER TO A SHINING EXAMPLE OF GRAND DESIGN
WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2022
672nd Issue
THOMS HART BENTON
IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Thomas Hart Benton, Wheat, 1967, oil on wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James A. Mitchell and museum purchase, 1991.55
An American scene painter who, along with John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, was a leading regionalist painter of the 1930s. 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).
Joan Stahl American Artists in Photographic Portraits from the Peter A. Juley & Son Collection (Washington, D.C. and Mineola, New York: National Museum of American Art and Dover Publications, Inc., 1995)
Benton’s idiom was essentially political and rhetorical, the painterly equivalent of the country stump speeches that were a Benton family tradition. The artist vividly recalled accompanying his father, Maecenas E. Benton — a four-term U.S. congressman, on campaigns through rural Missouri. Young Tom Benton grew up with an instinct for constituencies that led him to assess art on the basis of its audience appeal. 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.
Elizabeth Broun “Thomas Hart Benton: A Politician in Art,” Smithsonian Studies in American Art Spring 1987, p. 61
Thomas Hart Benton, Achelous and Hercules, 1947, tempera and oil on canvas mounted on plywood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Allied Stores Corporation, and museum purchase through the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program, 1985.2
Thomas Hart Benton, Ten Pound Hammer, 1967, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Frank McClure, 1970.87
Thomas Hart Benton, The Poet, 1938, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Frank McClure, 1970.88
Thomas Hart Benton, The Race, 1942, lithograph on paper mounted on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Morris Abrams, 2007.12
NOON THOMAS HART BENTON WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Thomas Hart Benton – Chilmark Landscape.jpg
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TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
PULITZER FOUNTAIN
LAURA HUSSEY AND ALEXIS VILLAFANE GOT IT
When newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer died in 1911, he bequeathed funds for the design and construction of a Beaux-Arts style fountain in his memory.
The Pulitzer Fountain has five basins in a stepped formation topped with the bronze figure of Pomona, the Roman goddess of abundance, sculpted by Karl Bitter. In her arm she holds a basket of harvested fruits. The water emerges from spouts at the base of the figure and cascades downs the basins. The fountain’s allegorical theme of abundance is completed by two large horns of plenty.
Ed Litcher
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
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