Thomas+Hart+Benton

=//The Wreck of the Ole '97//= http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1178 This painting was completed in 1943 and it captures the tension between the industrialization of the American west and the disappearance of the Midwestern rural tradition that Benton sought to record. It also represents Benton's desire to represent the common American experience, which, for many, was the displacement of rural farmers in the wake of rapid industrialization of the Midwest. The confrontation between the horse wagon and the train might also suggest a confrontation between an older way of life and progress. (Jacq) http://xroads.virginia.edu/~am482_04/am_scene/bentonimages.html

=//Strike//=



This piece is an imaginary reconstruction of a situation only too common in the late twenties and early thirties, mine workers going on strike. Thomas Hart Benton was interested in social issues in 1933, and this portrait is a heroic depiction of mine workers on strike, bravely confronting the faceless militia who is firing on them. Benton was involved in several political groups up until the 1930's, and although this is not a compassionate portrait of miners, the scene heightens its realism. (Jacq) http://issuu.com/kiechelart/docs/bentonsamerica, http://artandsocialissues.cmaohio.org/web-content/pages/econ_benton.html = = = = //On the Road with Thomas Hart Benton// http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/1aa/1aa428.htm This painting illustrates how travel produced some of the greatest works of art in Benton's career. He traveled all over the country side by foot and by automobile, and he witnessed America's transition from a rural, agricultural nation at the turn of the century to an urban, industrialized world power. Benton used drawing to chronicle his travels, producing a work of art and history simultaneously. Most of his work was committed to capturing the hard-bitten, melancholic, stubbornly preserving quality of ordinary people in America's heartland. His style of social realism comes across as American and easy to read. The characters in his paintings are typically long-boned and gnarly, expressing both strength and pain. He made a great effort to see what was going on in the "real" America and had a consistent determination to represent ordinary, working people and to celebrate their unvarnished American core. (Jacq)

http://www.artsatl.com/2013/12/review-thomas-hart-benton/#sthash.rsPj3dxQ.dpuf