Ten Pound Hammer
Ten Pound Hammer
Thomas Hart Benton
American, 1889 - 1975
1967
Lithograph
13 13/16 x 9 13/16 in. (35.1 x 24.9 cm)
Signed in pencil lower right. Edition of 300.
Railroad workers drive spikes beside a steam locomotive. Benton tied the image to the John Henry legend: "Old story of my youth—before the steam hammer beat out John Henry."
One of Benton's later lithographs, in an edition larger than his usual 250. Impressions are in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts. (Fath 79)
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.
Railroad workers drive spikes beside a steam locomotive. Benton tied the image to the John Henry legend: "Old story of my youth—before the steam hammer beat out John Henry."
One of Benton's later lithographs, in an edition larger than his usual 250. Impressions are in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts. (Fath 79)
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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