Thomas Hart Benton: A Life
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Thomas Hart Benton: A Life Details
Born in Missouri at the end of the nineteenth century, Thomas Hart Benton would become the most notorious and celebrated painter America had ever seen. The first artist to make the cover of Time, he was a true original: an heir to both the rollicking populism of his father's political family and the quiet life of his Appalachian grandfather. In his twenties, he would find his calling in New York, where he was drawn to memories of his small-town youth—and to visions of the American scene.By the mid-1930s, Benton's heroic murals were featured in galleries, statehouses, universities, and museums, and magazines commissioned him to report on the stories of the day. Yet even as the nation learned his name, he was often scorned by critics and political commentators, many of whom found him too nationalistic and his art too regressive. Even Jackson Pollock, his once devoted former student, would turn away from him in dramatic fashion. A boxer in his youth, Benton was quick to fight back, but the widespread backlash had an impact—and foreshadowed many of the artistic debates that would dominate the coming decades.In this definitive biography, Justin Wolff places Benton in the context of his tumultuous historical moment—as well as in the landscapes and cultural circles that inspired him. Thomas Hart Benton—with compelling insights into Benton's art, his philosophy, and his family history—rescues a great American artist from myth and hearsay, and provides an indelibly moving portrait of an influential, controversial, and often misunderstood man.
Reviews
Thomas Hart Benton was born near Neosha, MO on 4/5/1889. He was born to a moderately wealthy family in politics with his grandfather a U.S. Senator and his father a representative. He lived a troubled childhood berated by his father and coddled by his mother. He married Rita Piacenza, an Italian immigrant in 1920 and remained with her until their respective deaths in 1975. It was said, "Benton lived his moment; he tried everything the country offered - sometimes all at once. He was among the most prolific American artists of the twentieth century and painted or sketched almost daily from 1907 until his death in 1975." Tom was only 5'6" tall but powerfully built and engaged in both boxing and wrestling, which stood him in good stead with his pugnacious and verbose personality. It didn't help that he also had a great fondness for the liquid spirits.He founded the school of art known as regionalism deriving his greatest fame from the late 1920s until WWII began. He loved painting in the large as with murals for the Missouri state capital building and the Truman library. But by WWII the country's taste had changed to abstractionism and Benton didn't like the genre.He had many famous friends, some of whom became enemies later in life as Alfred Stieglitz, the photographer and his own art student Jackson Pollock. He went out of his way to insult Stieglitz, while Pollock, who was a severe alcoholic, proposed to Benton's wife - Rita, who was somewhat older. When she turned him down, he sort of unfriended the Bentons, although they tried to remain cordial with him. Benton remained friends with Woody Guthrie, Grant Wood, and John Stueart Curry to name a few.The author gives a nice discourse on Bentons most famous works, especially Persephone, a color plate of which is included in the book, as is a B/W photo taken by his friend Alfred Eisenstaedt of him working on this painting. A small representation of his works was included, and I only wish there were more.The author is obviously well versed in his subject matter and went into exacting detail about the various works and Benton's private life, which may have been just a little too detailed adding probably 30-40 pages of narrative with some incidents repeated several times in the book. But overall it was entertaining and worthy review of a most interesting character.