Thomas Hart Benton (1889 - 1975)
Thomas Hart Benton was active/lived in Missouri, Massachusetts, Kansas. Thomas Benton is known for regionalist easel and mural painting, illustration, graphics.

Medium: OIl on canvas
Size: 24" x 18"
Frame Size: 28" x 22"
Condition: Great, No Blemishes
Style: Impressionist
Circa: 1950s

In a recent interview with Dorothy Miller, affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art as assistant to Alfred Barr, and curator of painting and sculpture during its formative years, Miller offered another view of Thomas Hart Benton.

"During a brief period in the early thirties my husband and I used to visit Thomas Hart Benton in New York City. He lived on 13th St. in a big studio with a very nice Italian wife (Rita). He was a friendly, nice guy. They would have 16-20 people over, feed us, while he played the harmonica and his wife played the guitar and sang, everyone having a jolly time. He was terribly nice and amusing.

"My husband, Holger Cahill, ran the W.P.A. eight years during the Roosevelt administration. He knew Benton very well and hundreds of other artists. In 1932-33, Holger ran the Museum of Modern Art during Alfred Barr's illness... he was so overworked he couldn't sleep. My husband finished a big American art show with work from 1862-1932. It was the only time Whistler's Mother came back from the Louvre. Holger put Benton in the show. I remember Benton saying, "Look, you don't have to put me in this show just because we're friends." But he deserved to be in it. He was becoming famous.

"We were going to New Mexico and said, 'Let's stop off in Kansas City and see Benton' (the artist had left New York City in 1935). It must have been the early 30's (sic). He was living in a very contemporary suburban-type house. His wife was just as nice as before. She said, 'Come on over for dinner.'

"He was a totally changed man, totally a nasty guy, apparently because of his early success then being forgotten. His paintings were the same in style, only bigger. We stayed for dinner and his wife did all she could to make it a success. He was so disagreeable. I think my position at the Museum of Modern Art had a lot to do with his attitude; and Holger had sponsored modern art for the W.P.A. (Benton had questioned the validity of modern art and been severely criticized for doing so, in addition to losing his leading position in the art world with the rise of modernism.)

PROVENANCE
Private Collection from New York

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