Waiting for the Revolution
Waiting for the Revolution
Thomas Hart Benton
American, 1889 - 1975
1934
Lithograph
4 x 7 9/16 in. (10.2 x 19.2 cm)
Signed in pencil lower right. Edition of 10.
A farmer sits atop a stalled, broken-down automobile in empty country. Benton identified the car as his own and the title as a jab at the New York Marxists and fellow travelers of the early 1930s who predicted, and waited for, an American revolution.
An early lithograph whose title reflects Benton's antagonism toward the New York left of the period; printed in an edition of only ten, it is among the scarcest of his prints. (Fath 9)
Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975)
Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri, and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Académie Julian in Paris. Rejecting the European modernism of his early years, he became, with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, a leader of American Regionalism, painting the farmers, laborers, and folklore of the Midwest and South in a dynamic, sculptural style. His major murals include America Today (1930–31, Metropolitan Museum of Art) and A Social History of the State of Missouri (1936) in the Missouri State Capitol, and in 1934 he became the first artist to appear on the cover of Time. Beginning in 1934, Associated American Artists published his lithographs in editions sold by mail at modest prices, making them among the most widely collected American prints of the century. Benton taught at the Art Students League in New York, where Jackson Pollock was his student, and later at the Kansas City Art Institute. He died in his Kansas City studio in 1975.
A farmer sits atop a stalled, broken-down automobile in empty country. Benton identified the car as his own and the title as a jab at the New York Marxists and fellow travelers of the early 1930s who predicted, and waited for, an American revolution.
An early lithograph whose title reflects Benton's antagonism toward the New York left of the period; printed in an edition of only ten, it is among the scarcest of his prints. (Fath 9)
Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975)
Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri, and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Académie Julian in Paris. Rejecting the European modernism of his early years, he became, with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, a leader of American Regionalism, painting the farmers, laborers, and folklore of the Midwest and South in a dynamic, sculptural style. His major murals include America Today (1930–31, Metropolitan Museum of Art) and A Social History of the State of Missouri (1936) in the Missouri State Capitol, and in 1934 he became the first artist to appear on the cover of Time. Beginning in 1934, Associated American Artists published his lithographs in editions sold by mail at modest prices, making them among the most widely collected American prints of the century. Benton taught at the Art Students League in New York, where Jackson Pollock was his student, and later at the Kansas City Art Institute. He died in his Kansas City studio in 1975.
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