CHICAGO.- The Terra Foundation for the Arts announced its acquisition of two important paintings, Industry (Women Spinning)and Slaves, from The American Historical Epic series by Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975). The Foundation obtained these large, mural-like oil on canvases-Industry (Women Spinning) measures 66 1/8 by 30 inches and Slaves measures 66 7/16 by 72 3/8 inches-from the Thomas Hart and Rita P. Benton Testamentary Trust. Both works will be on view February 14 through October 31, 2004 at the Terra Museum of American Art in the exhibition A Narrative of American Art.
"Surprisingly, there are no significant works of art by Benton in Chicago’s public collections and, therefore, the Terra Foundation is pleased to rectify this void for the city," stated Elizabeth Glassman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Terra Foundation for the Arts. "Notable for both his early sympathy with modernist art theory and his transformation of its lessons into a completely discernable American idiom, Benton represents an outstanding example of the American artist who absorbed European stylistic concepts in the process of his own innovations. As one of the celebrated founders of American Scene painting and a proponent of both modernism and regionalism, Thomas Hart Benton is truly an icon of American art that belongs in Chicago."
Begun in 1919, Benton’s ambitious series, The American Historical Epic, was conceived of as chapters. By 1927 about eighteen paintings were realized-three chapters of five paintings-from the projected sixty to seventy-five panels. Themes of conflict and economic exploitation-between settlers and Indians, planters and slaves, the devout and non-believers-predominated.
The two panels acquired by the Foundation from The American Historical Epic are from the chapter on economic exploitation, which examines the brutalizing effects of slavery in America in Slaves and the contribution of women’s unstinting work, beyond their family duties, in the production of homespun in Industry (Women Spinning). The combination
of
these two pictures exemplifies the artist’s visual history lesson as a harsh realistic assessment, rather than a nationalistic romance, of labor. Benton’s realism was not nostalgic nor a refuge from the complexities of modern life. The beautifully rendered, volumetric
figures and the delicate glazes on the surface of Industry (Women Spinning), for example, create a hushed calm and suggest a sense of melancholy, a feeling furthered by the protagonists longingly gazing out the window. These women are not content with their lot.
Slaves is a powerful and rare condemnation of slavery. Many artists failed to address the horrors of human bondage, whether in America or elsewhere. Benton furthered his commentary by showing the steeple of a church in the painting’s background, alluding to the sanction of slavery by many religious authorities in the United States. Slaves contrasts with other paintings in the series, where figures of black males are shown as pioneers or in other roles of agency. In many of his later murals of contemporary America, Benton notably employs sympathetic images of African Americans in portraying the rich complexity of American life.
"With these two extraordinary comments on American history, Benton showed himself to be a bold and thoughtful commentator on the dramatic, and at times violent, reality of American history that was expressed in his distinctive and modern interpretation of classic history painting," stated Elizabeth Kennedy, Curator, Terra Museum of American Art.
About Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975)- Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri into a long lineage of well-to-do politicians. He broke the family tradition in 1905 when he dropped out of high school to become a cartoonist for the Joplin American. Unlike some of his Regionalist colleagues, Benton received extensive training as an artist. From 1906 to 1907 Benton studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and in 1908 left the United States to enroll in the Académie Julien in Paris. Upon returning to the United States, Benton spent two years in the Navy and then settled in New York City, which became the center of his professional life for the next two decades.
Benton continued to paint while working at subsistence jobs such as teaching and painting sets for the movie industry. He became, however most famous for his murals, in which his innovations modernized the classical conventions. In 1932, he brought this talent to Chicago where he was commissioned to paint a mural for Indiana Hall at the World’s Fair. Benton settled with his wife in Kansas City in 1935 after being offered a job teaching at the Kansas City Art Institute. He went on to illustrate a copy of John Steinbeck’s "The Grapes of Wrath," to collaborate with Georges Schreiber on a series of paintings as a response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and to influence several of his well-known students including Jackson Pollock, Aaron Pyle, and Bill Hammond. Constantly active in the art world, Benton died in 1975 in his Kansas City studio after living a long, celebrated life as a great American regionalist.
