Thomas Hart Benton : regionalist painter and social muralist

Posté par admin
mercredi 10 août 2005 [n° 300]

Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975)

Thomas Hart Benton was born on April 15, 1889 in Neosho, Missouri. He spent most of his childhood in boarding schools and in Washington, D.C. and landed his first job as a cartoonist for the Joplin American in Missouri. Benton studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, resided briefly in Paris.

Upon returning to the United States, Benton spent two years in the Navy, and settled in New York City.

After establishing himself as a painter, Benton exhibited with Mexican social realist painter, Jose Clemente Orozco in 1928.

In 1929, he adopted the lithograph as an artistic medium with “The Station”, the first of many acclaimed and popular prints.

The art produced by the American Scene artists ( 1920s – early1940 ) such as Benton, and also, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood drew from diverse cultures : the rural American Regionalism and the urban and politically-oriented Social Realism.

Its specific boundaries remain ambiguous, and there probably lies much of the controversy stirred by Benton murals. Conservatives accused him of being a socialist leaning artist, while Liberals condemned his representation of the Ku Klux Klan.

Benton studied in Paris 1, but it is noticeable that he rejected cubism. It is less a reaction against the modern European style than a broad tendency for American artists to move away from abstraction and the avant-garde in the period between the two world wars.

Benton explains his position as follows : “Contrary to general belief, the ‘Regionalist’ movement did not in any way oppose abstract form. It simply wished to put meanings, recognizable American meanings, into some of it. I have myself spent a great deal of time working with the basic properties of art, combining purely geometric forms. In my case, however, the resulting combinations were not themselves what we call ends. The ends I had in view…were always to create effective vehicles for representing and communicating meanings” 2

“It seemed to me that I must make a choice. Either I would paint in the realistic tradition of Western art with some kind of identification with the natural world, and thus risk being ‘unprogressive,’ or I would follow the new movements toward an unknown goal, a goal which a number of far-sighted critics were already saying might turn out to be an empty square of paint.” (1911) Thomas Hart Benton, Challenge to Modernism, Bard College; Queens Museum, New York City (1985)

Benton’s declared goal was to create an art that would be truely American. His painting depicts scenes of typical American life and landscape painted in a naturalistic, descriptive vein, his inspiration being deeply rooted in american social history.

“What I wanted now was to see clearly the nature of American life as it unrolled before me and to paint it without my vision being distorted by any generalities of (Marxist) social theory. The exposition of this change of mind caused my radical friends to see me with a jaundiced eye. I became for most of them a ‘reactionary’ and a ‘chauvinist,’ in addition to again being an ‘opportunist.’” Jessie Vans Dongray

Indiana

In 1932, he was commissioned to paint a mural for Indiana Hall at the “Century of Progress” exposition at the Chicago World’s Fair. Benton signed a contract to paint a continuous mural, 12 feet high and about 250 feet long, depicting the “Social and Industrial History of Indiana.” 3

“Benton discusses his aesthetic in his essay “A Dream Fulfilled,” in which he observes that “History was not a scholarly study for me but a drama.” He depicts that drama by dividing the history of the state into two sequences, or threads, one with an emphasis on Indiana Industry, the other depicting the Cultural history of the state”.

Read and view video clips about the controversies surrounding Benton’s portral of the Klu Klux Klan on the Indiana Murals : “Parks, the Circus, the Klan, the Press,” by Thomas Hart Benton

After being temporarily warehoused at the conclusion of the World’s Fair, the murals are transferred to the state fairground in Indianapolis and largely forgotten, but the controversy continues.

Murals history and controversy

source : Culture panel 10, “Parks, the Circus, the Klan, the Press” Indiana University


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“1986-87 — Concerned about the deterioration of the Woodburn and University Theater murals, including the frequently vandalized KKK image in the Woodburn mural, the university receives a National Endowment for the Arts grant and cleans and conserves the panels“.

Thomas Hart Benton murals timeline Indiana University

Benton : a regionalist painter

Benton settled with his wife in Kansas City in 1935 after being offered a job teaching at the Kansas City Art Institute.

His most famous pupil was the Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock; his well known Nebraska students at the Institute were Aaron Pyle and Bill Hammond.

Benton developed his style as a proclaimed enemy of modernism, and aligned himself with the Regionalist vision.

The subjects of his paintings, lithographs, and prints revolved around Mid-western life, and more importantly, man’s struggle against technology and modernization.

The Regionalist’s argument received unintentional support from the so-called Urban Realists (Social Realists), who focused their attention on the city.

Missouri : the Benton mural as “source of pride”

His most famous murals are located in the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City and in the Truman Library 4 in Independence.

“The mural at first sparked controversy among the legislators with its bold and vivid scenes of everyday Missouri life. Surviving attempts to whitewash it, Benton’s “Social History of Missouri” is now a source of pride and a popular stop for visitors touring the Capitol.” 5

Benton died January 19, 1975 in his studio 6.
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Thomas Hart Benton [American Regionalist Painter, 1889-1975]


  1. “”I had commenced reading Hippolyte Taine’s ‘Philosophie de l’Art‘…It made a deep impression. Revealing the close ties of the older arts to specific social backgrounds and cultures, it made me question many ideas about art that I had heretofore taken for granted… Seen through Taine’s writing, the art of Paris appeared to be feeding wholly on itself; paintings were growing out of paintings rather than out of any discernible cultural situations. Though, as Taine seemed to spell out, this was degradation, the literature circulating about the new movements gave them a persuasive aura of progressiveness…” [back]
  2. Thomas Hart Benton, Challenge to Modernism, Bard College; Queens Museum, New York City (1985) by Jessie Don Gray [back]
  3. Thomas Hart Benton and the Indiana Murals, Kathleen A. Foster, Nanette Esseck Brewer, Margaret Contompasis – IUAM in association with Indiana University Press, Bloomington & Indianapolis, 2000 [back]
  4. Oral History Interview with Thomas Hart Benton April 21, 1964 [back]
  5. Missouri State Capitol – General Information [back]
  6. Thomas Hart Benton House [back]
Art

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