Huck Finn
Huck Finn
Thomas Hart Benton
American, 1889 - 1975
1936
Lithograph
16 1/4 x 21 5/8 in. (41.3 x 54.9 cm)
Signed in pencil lower right. Edition of 100.
Huck and Jim on their raft on the Mississippi, a steamboat's smoke behind them. Benton adapted the image from the Huck Finn section of his 1936 mural A Social History of the State of Missouri in the Missouri State Capitol. Published by Associated American Artists, New York.
One of three large lithographs Benton drew from the Capitol mural's Missouri legends, with Jesse James and Frankie and Johnny. Benton wrote that he reread Twain's book every two or three years. Impressions are in the Reynolda House Museum of American Art and the Zimmerli Art Museum. (Fath 12)
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.
Huck and Jim on their raft on the Mississippi, a steamboat's smoke behind them. Benton adapted the image from the Huck Finn section of his 1936 mural A Social History of the State of Missouri in the Missouri State Capitol. Published by Associated American Artists, New York.
One of three large lithographs Benton drew from the Capitol mural's Missouri legends, with Jesse James and Frankie and Johnny. Benton wrote that he reread Twain's book every two or three years. Impressions are in the Reynolda House Museum of American Art and the Zimmerli Art Museum. (Fath 12)
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.
Categories
