Spirit of America Bookstore
Thomas Hart Benton
[1889-1975]
Art Page
![Thomas Hart Benton [1889-1975] b&w portrait by Alfred Eisenstaedt](images/ThomaHartBenton-plaidpipe.jpg "Thomas Hart Benton [1889-1975] b&w portrait by Alfred Eisenstaedt") | short profile |
"You can't change your mind up on a scaffold without the risk of everything going awry.
You must solve your problems before you get up there."
"I paint every day. Sometimes I hate painting, but I keep at it, thinking always that before
I croak I'll really learn how to do it – maybe as well as some of the old painters."
— Thomas Hart Benton
B I O
t e x t
h e r e
Thomas Hart Benton entry at Wikipedia
browse books at Thomas Hart Benton Store at Amazon
Thomas Hart Benton credits [1940-88] at Internet Movie Database
Works About Thomas Hart Benton
browse Books / American Artists / Thomas Hart Benton category at Amazon
"Thomas Hart Benton: A Personal Commemorative: A Retrospective Exhibition of His Works,
1907-1972" [Burd and Fletcher, 1973] catalog from the exhibition in March-April 1973 at Spiva Art Center,
Missouri Southern State College in Joplin, Missouri {'In honor of the Joplin Centennial'}
"Thomas Hart Benton" [HNAbrams 1975] by Matthew Baigell
http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hart-Benton-Matthew-Baigell/dp/0810920557/
"The Lithographs of Thomas Hart Benton" [1979] Edited by Creekmore Fath
http://www.amazon.com/Lithographs-Thomas-Hart-Benton/dp/0292746687/
"Thomas Hart Benton: Chronicler of America's Folk Heritage" [The Institute 1984]
http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hart-Benton-Chronicler-Americas/dp/0941276058/
"Thomas Hart Benton: The America Today Murals" [1985] by Emily Braun
catalog of an exhibition presented by the Williams College Museum of Art in February 1985
"Tom Benton and His Drawings: A Biographical Essay and A Collection of His Sketches, Studies,
and Mural Cartoons" [Univ Missouri Press 1985] by Karal Ann Marling
"Thomas Hart Benton: An American Original" [Alfred A. Knopf 1989] by Henry Adams
"Only the Rivers Are Peaceful: Thomas Hart Benton's Missouri Mural"
[Independence Press/Herald Publng House 1989] by Bob Priddy
"World War II Through The Eyes of Thomas Hart Benton" [1991] THBworldwarIIeyes.jpg
http://www.amazon.com/World-through-eyes-Thomas-Benton/dp/0916677273/
 | "Benton's America: Works On Paper and Selected Paintings" [1991] catalog from the exhibit at Hirschl & Adler Galleries in 1991 Hirschl & Adler hardcover [1991] out of print/used |
"Benton, Pollock, and The Politics of Modernism: From Regionalism To Abstract Expressionism"
[Univ Chicago Press 1991] by Erika Lee Doss
"Renegade Regionalists: The Modern Independence of Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton,
and John Steuart Curry" [3/1998] by James M. Dennis
http://www.amazon.com/Renegade-Regionalists-Modern-Independence-Steuart/dp/0299155846/
"Thomas Hart Benton and The American South" [1998] J. Richard Gruber
catalog from an exhibit at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia in 1998
"Tom and Jack: The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock"
[11/2009] by Henry Adams
http://www.amazon.com/Tom-Jack-Intertwined-Jackson-ebook/dp/B002WOD8VA/
http://www.amazon.com/Tom-Jack-Intertwined-Jackson-Pollock/dp/1596914203/
 | "Thomas Hart Benton: A Life" [2012] by Justin Wolff Kindle Edition from FS&G [3/2012] for $19.99 Farrar, Straus & Giroux 9x6 hardcover [3/2012] for $23.52 |
Works by Thomas Hart Benton
 | "Europe After 8:15" [John Lane Co. 1914] by H.L. Mencken [1880-1956], George Jean Nathan & Willard Huntington Wright (S.S. Van Dine), 'with decorations by' Thomas Hart Benton Kindle Edition from Amazon Digital Services [undated] for FREE {sic} Univ California Libraries 8x5 pb [1914 facsimile edition] for $17.99 Dodo Press 9x6 pb [6/2007] for $12.99 available as free online etext at Project Gutenberg larger view of Thomas Hart Benton 'Berlin' drawing at left {in new window} |
"An Artist In America" autobiography [orig 1937, rev 1951, 1968 & 1983] by Thomas Hart Benton
http://www.amazon.com/Artist-America-4th-Revised/dp/082620399X/
 | "The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life" [1849] by Francis Parkman, Jr. [1823-93] Tales of Parkman's summer tour of Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas (not the actual Oregon Trail); originally serialized in twenty-one installments in Knickerbocker's Magazine in 1847–49, then published as a book in 1849. • book entry at Wikipedia 1945 edition illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton Intl. Collectors Library 8¼x5¾ hardcover [1945] out of print/used |
"American Regionalism: A Personal History of The Movement" [1951] by Thomas Hart Benton
University of Kansas City Review 18 (Autumn 1951)
"A Thomas Hart Benton Miscellany: Selections From His Published Opinions, 1916-1960"
[1971] Edited by Matthew Baigell
http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hart-Benton-miscellany-Selections/dp/070060071X/
"The President and Me: The Intimate Story" [1995] by Thomas Hart Benton
Gateway Heritage 16 (Winter 1995)
Movies & TV, Other Media
"Night Descends On Treasure Island" short [M.G.M. Jan 1940] /tt0304472/
8-minute color short produced & narrated by James A. FitzPatrick
"Grandpa Called It Art" [1944] /tt0143283/
"Person To Person" TV series episode [aired 1959] /tt1036298/
"Profiles In Courage" TV episode "Thomas Hart Benton" [aired Nov 1964]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0679749/
"60 Minutes" TV series episode [aired in 1975]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123338/ = series only
"Thomas Hart Benton: A Film by Ken Burns" [1988]
documentary film directed by Ken Burns /tt0272887/
http://www.amazon.com/Ken-Burns-America-Thomas-Benton/dp/B000BITUJI/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/630404870X/
http://www.amazon.com/Ken-Burns-America-Thomas-Benton/dp/B000BITUJI/
http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hart-Benton/dp/B0002JP4RS/
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/benton/
"Thomas Hart Benton: From The Ozarks and Beyond" [Ozarks PBS 2009?]
 | Half-hour documentary focusing on Benton & his murals in Missouri VHS/DVD/Blu-ray not available • not listed on IMDb • official movie webpage watch 11/2009 upload online at YouTube: Part 1 [9:45] • Part 2 [9:48] • Part 3 [8:38] |
W.N.E.T.'s "Picturing America on Screen" Project [2011]
Thomas Hart Benton & George Caleb Bingham [6:48]
Thumbnail Gallery
Thomas Hart Benton murals are in the Missouri State Capitol, at Indiana University, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and at
The New School for Social Research. Thomas Hart Benton is represented in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum,
the Brooklyn Museum, the Sheldon Swope Art Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the City Art Museum of St. Louis (Missouri),
the Museum of Modern Art, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, the U.S. Navy Art Collection (25 works), and others.
search posters on keywords 'Thomas Hart Benton' at Amazon
Self Portrait [1912] |
"Self Portrait With Rita" [1922] |
Self Portrait [1925] |
Self Portrait [1970] |
Benton received a commission to paint murals at the New School for Social Research; "America Today" was completed in 1931. In 1984 the murals were purchased and restored by AXA Equitable Insurance to hang in the lobby of their building at 1290 Sixth Avenue in New York City. In December 2012, AXA donated the murals to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which quickly displayed them online, did further restoration work, and finally put them on exhibit from October 2014 thru 2015.
MMoA's official webpage includes a slideshow of all ten pieces and a short video [0:45] of the original arrangement.
Family & Friends
painter Thomas Hart Benton was born in 1889 in Neosho, Missouri and died in January 1975 in Kansas City, Missouri.
wife Rita Piacenza Benton [?-1975] - married in 1922, widowed in January 1975, died in April 1975
son Thomas Piacenza Benton [b. 1926]
daughter Jessie Benton [b. 1939]
namesake & great-uncle Sen. Thomas Hart Benton [1782-1858] of Arkansas
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=b000398
"American Statesmen: Thomas Hart Benton" [] by Theodore Roosevelt & John T. Morse Jr.
http://www.amazon.com/American-Statesmen-THOMAS-BENTON-ebook/dp/B005TK5GAA/
(Kindle Edition Oct 6, 2011)
L i n k s
Thomas Hart Benton entry at Wikipedia
browse books at Thomas Hart Benton Store at Amazon
Thomas Hart Benton credits [1940-88] at Internet Movie Database
browse Books / American Artists / Thomas Hart Benton category at Amazon
http://www.mostateparks.com/park/thomas-hart-benton-home-and-studio-state-historic-site
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hart_Benton_Home_and_Studio_State_Historic_Site
ASKART.com has many paintings + bio
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/benton_thomas_hart.html
here on the painter Thomas Hart Benton [1889-1975] Page at Spirit of America Bookstore
top of page • short profile • works about Thomas Hart Benton • works by Thomas Hart Benton
movies & TV, other media • thumbnail gallery • family & friends • links
v v
Online sales in association with 
top of this page | back to Spirit of America Bookstore homepage