Instruction
Instruction
Thomas Hart Benton
American, 1889 - 1975
1940
Lithograph
10 7/16 x 12 5/16 in. (26.5 x 31.3 cm)
Signed in pencil lower right. Edition of 250.
An itinerant preacher expounds on the Bible. Benton's model, found by one of his Kansas City Art Institute students in the pool halls of 15th Street, sold a fermented rattlesnake tonic and also conducted a Sunday school class. Published by Associated American Artists, New York.
The lithograph follows a 1940 painting of the same man, made directly from life. (Fath 41)
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.
An itinerant preacher expounds on the Bible. Benton's model, found by one of his Kansas City Art Institute students in the pool halls of 15th Street, sold a fermented rattlesnake tonic and also conducted a Sunday school class. Published by Associated American Artists, New York.
The lithograph follows a 1940 painting of the same man, made directly from life. (Fath 41)
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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