American

Thomas Hart Benton

U.S. 1889-1975
Self Portrait 79.0068

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This lithograph is based on Thomas Hart Benton's 1970, painted self-portrait. It shows the aging artist painting in his summer studio at Martha's Vineyard. Missouri-born Benton was known as one of the Midwest's triumvirate, which included Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry. Well traveled and well educated, Benton moved his family from New York to Kansas City in 1935 in order to take up the position of Director of the Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design. His shift from "modernist" to "regionalist" signaled his interest in every aspect of American diversity: the South, the Ozarks, the Appalachians, river life, farming, industry, and even Hollywood. His ability to reveal Americans to themselves in his paintings, murals, and lithographs has defined much of the American experience.

 

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