Thomas Hart Benton

American (1889-1975)

The son of a U.S. Congressman and the great-nephew of a U.S. Senator, Benton was influenced by American politics and the American scene early in life. Born in Neosho, Missouri in 1889, Benton studied art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to Paris in 1908. There, he studied at the Academie Julian for three years, and was influenced by the modernist painters of the time, including Cezanne, Matisse and the Cubists. After working as a naval draftsman in World War I, Benton returned to New York and started capturing the American scene in his work. His signature style was the regionalist genre, especially laboring figures from the midwest. 

A prolific artist, Benton produced over 4,000 works during his lifetime. Along with being a  muralist, illustrator and painter, Benton was a teacher at the Art Students League, where one of his most famous students was Jackson Pollock. He also authored numerous books and publications. Examples of his murals and paintings are held in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the American Art Museum, Smithsonian Institute, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.