15
- Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

- Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

- Presentation – THOMAS HART

BENTON

September 2008

Page 2: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Who was Thomas Hart Benton?

Thomas Hart Benton in his studio, 1936. Photo courtesy of The Kansas City Star.

1889 – Born in Neosho, MO to a famous political family.

Started drawing at a young age – his created his first mural with crayons.

Educated as an artist at the Art Institute of Chicago and Academie Julian in Paris.

Page 3: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Who was Thomas Hart Benton?

Originally influenced by European art, then experimented with abstraction

Considered outspoken, opinionated and often abrasive and surrounded by controversy

One of the principal Regionalists

Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14589825

Through painting, Benton was able to support himself

Page 4: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Benton’s Techniques

Early on attempted Modernism, Abstraction, Synchromism, Master Works

Benton denounced the contemporary art of his time, but never fully broke from his Modernist roots

Mural and canvas paintings focused on American history and sometimes “less savory” subjects of American life through varied subjects

Early 1930s vs late 1930s

Compare Benton and Michelangelo’s artworks New York Rooftops, c. 1920-23

Page 5: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Thomas Hart Benton, The Bather, 1917 Michelangelo Buonaratti, Figure from the Sistine Chapel, Rome, 1508-1512

Page 6: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Benton’s Techniques

Picnic, 1952 Private Collection

“Sold out” in a sense by creating artworks for the tobacco industry and the military.

His canvas - dramatic action, loud colors, sculptural volumes

He intended to create distinctly American art

Landscapes in his later years have a “feeling of harmony between man and nature”

Tobacco Sorters, 1944

Page 7: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Benton and Pollock

The Teacher and The Pupil Benton taught Pollock at the Art

Students League of New York Regionalists influenced Abstract

Expressionists Compare Benton and Pollock’s works

Jackson Pollock n 1928. Jackson Pollock Papers. Archives of American Art.

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Rephotographed by Lee Ewing

Jackson Pollock, Going West, c. 1934-1935National Museum of American Art,

Smithsonian Institution

Thomas Hart Benton, Going West, 1930Illustration for Leo Hubermans’s We The People

Page 8: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Benton’s Rhythm

Benton’s three fundamental principles of successful composition:

Equilibrium, Sequence or Connection and Rhythm

Curves and their counterpoint around vertical poles

“Thomas Hart Benton, illustrations from “The Mechanics of Form Organization,”

redrawn from Benton’s pencil sketches by Lloyd Goodrich, published in Arts

magazine, 1926-27. In his essay, Benton laid out the fundamental principles of

abstract composition. His diagrams directly looked forward to the work of his pupil Jackson Pollock. The compositional

structure of Pollock’s early works is given in diagrams 22 and 23; that of his later work

in diagram 24.”1

Page 9: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Thomas Hart Benton, The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley 1934 Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS

Page 10: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Benton’s The Hailstorm

Represents a return to his roots in Missouri

Paint what you know rather than imagined

Agrarian subject – drama of man in nature

Distorted figures, soft and blurred edges, Baroque contrast and diagonals/dramatic lines, agitation.

Watercolor study

Detail The Hailstorm, 1940

Detail Running Before the Storm, 1940

Page 11: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Thomas Hart Benton, The Hailstorm, 1940

Page 12: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

The Regionalists

Grant Wood Lived his entire life in Iowa Subject matter of choice – country life

and American folklore The Stone City Colony and Art School 1935 – Published the Revolt Against

the City John Steuart Curry

Kansas farm boy who moved east Respect for animals – noted how

weather conditions affected farm life Subject matter of choice –

melodramatic depictions of his regions he called home

Taught at Art Students League of New York

John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, photographMuseum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Grant Wood, Stone City, Iowa, 1930Joslyn Art Museum

John Steuart Curry, Manhunt, 1931Joslyn Art Museum

Page 13: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Grant Wood Stone City, Iowa, 1930. Joslyn Art Museum

Power of Nature

Page 14: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

John Steuart Curry Tornado Over Kansas,1929 Muskegon Museum of Art

Page 15: - Presentation – THOMAS HART BENTON September 2008

Thomas Hart Benton, Spring on the Missouri, 1945 © T.H. Benton and R.P. Benton Testamentary Trusts/UMB Bank Trustee/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY