Thomas Hart Benton Home & Studio State Historic Site

Effective August 13, 2020, there will be no guided tours available at the Benton Home indefinitely. Our Visitor Center will still be open, but you will not be able to go inside the studio or house. As an alternate experience, a 10-minute video about Thomas Hart Benton and the house will be available. We apologize, but this is for the health and safety of everyone. The Visitor Center will be open 10AM-4PM Thu-Sat & Mon, 11AM-4PM Sun.

Benton's mural of Jacques Cartier and the Seneca (1956) is now installed at the New York State Museum in Albany, and wow, do they look great!

THIS WEEK IN BENTON HISTORY: New York Herald-Tribune November 9, 1937: The Museum of Modern Art put together an exhibition of 36 American artists to be represented in a large show at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris in the spring of ’38. The incredibly popular Regionalists were well represented since Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry all had pieces in the exhibition. Benton’s selected painting was Romancea personal favorite of our staffwhich depicts a southern African-American couple on a moonlight stroll. This was just one of many important exhibitions and events Benton was in throughout the 1930s as his stardom rose. Before the art was shipped to Paris, the MoMA had a preview at the museum. To learn more about Tom’s painting Romance, check out what we wrote about it for the Painting of the Week!

We were excited to host the violin/cello duo The Wires at the Benton Home & Studio yesterday so they could shoot video for their Nov. 25th streaming concert. For tickets https://www.facebook.com/events/971064643385485/?event_time_id=971064656718817.

This has been a stressful week within a stressful year. Whenever you need a break, get outside and walk around in some of the Missouri State Parks. This golden beauty is right above Tom Benton's studio.

The Return to the Middle West (by William Unger) 1976 Oil? on Plaster 5’7 x 104’ Location as of [current] Student Union Bldg/Truman State University Because Thomas Hart Benton’s murals are so recognizable, and because government-sponsored murals in public buildings from the 1930s are so ubiquitous, we often meet people who say that Benton has a mural in their hometown post office or in such-&-such courthouse. In truth, Tom never produced any of these PWAP/WPA/FAP/Treas...ury Section murals. But the down-home scenes and local history themes of Benton and his fellow Regionalist artists was certainly influential to those New Deal murals. Also, some of the artists who created those murals had been Benton’s students. While certainly not a New Deal mural, one work that is sometimes erroneously attributed to Benton is at Truman State University in Kirksville MO. This is understandable, since the mural The Return to the Middle West is an homage to Benton and a montage of several of his artworks. Keep in mind too, that Benton had died in 1975. In 1976, in celebration of the American Bicentennial, Truman State (then Northeast Missouri State) commissioned their art/art history professor William Unger to paint a large mural in the style of Benton for the Student Union Building. Unger (1914-80) was born in Graz, Austria, emigrated to Wisconsin in 1954 and began teaching art, then was hired at NEMSU in 1960. Since this mural is so long, and in a hallway, it is impossible to photograph it in one shot. Keep in mind that the image you see is digitally stitched together, and sections overlap. From top left to bottom right: Discovery from American Historical Epic-Chapter I [AHE] mural (1920), Palisades from AHE I (1921), Aggression from AHE I (1923), Retribution from AHE I (1924), Over the Mountains from AHE II (1926), Prayer from AHE I (1923), The Jesuits from AHE II (1927), The Pathfinder from AHE II (1926), Abraham Lincoln mural (1954), Pioneer Days from Social History of Missouri [SHMO] mural (1936), Huck Finn & Jim from SHMO (1936), Jessie James from SHMO (1936), Modern Farming & Law from SHMO (1936), Political Meeting & Early Farming from SHMO (1936), The Young Fisherman (1962), and The Boy (1950). See more

Kansas City Folly Theater Jazzes Up Lobby with Thomas Hart Benton Mural Reprints When we do return to arts venues, patrons of the Folly Theater will have a new reason to linger in the lobby, which is now adorned with art from Missouri-son Thomas Hart Benton. Two large-scale panels from Benton’s 1929 America Today murals, reprinted from the originals in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, depict leisure pursuits in a collage of city vignettes. City Activities ...with Dancehall and City Activities with Subway look like scenes pulled directly from the Pendergast Era. While other panels in the set feature agrarian scenes from the South, or workers and technology, these panels harken back to the Folly’s jazz age history, featuring characters boozing, kissing and dancing, along with acrobats, movie-goers, burlesque dancers and boxers, juxtaposed with missionary bands, prayerful sinners and delicate family scenes. http://kcstudio.org/arts-in-brief-sep-oct-2020-ewert-hilge/ See more

THIS WEEK IN BENTON HISTORY: The Jewish Post [Indianapolis] November 4, 1960: For decades, American celebrities have used their notoriety to throw support behind politicians they like. This is a really interesting ad for the 1960 election when Senator John F. Kennedy ran against Vice President Richard Nixon. Benton supported Kennedy (you can see his name 4th on the list), but it’s really fun to see what other names jump out at you. We noticed the incredible Jamaican-Americ...an singer Harry Belafonte, comedian Milton Berle, actor Paul Newman, writer James Michener, famous pediatrician Dr. Spock, and we were thrilled to see they included some famous and politically active women from the timeincluding the singer, performer and activist Lena Horne, as well as the famous actress Bette Davis! No matter what your political affiliation, go make your voice heard this Tuesday for the 2020 election; voting is what keeps our democracy alive. See more

Different kinds of moonlight change the shape of the river 1944 Watercolor, gouche, & ink on Paper 7 x 4.5 Location as of [current] State Historical Society of MO/Columbia Rivers, riverboats, riverboat men! Tom Benton loved to paint them all. He got a wonderful opportunity to do so when he was asked to illustrate Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi for the Limited Editions Book Club. He’d already illustrated Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer (in black and white), so he... turned to watercolor for this project. For the titles of each of his illustrations, Benton simply used a line of text from the page opposite of where his artworks would appear. The book itself is an autobiographical account of Twain’s early training as a steamboat captain on the Mississippi. He includes a history of the river, the characters he met, lots of tall tales, and his own journey downstream from St. Louis to New Orleans; all in all a romantic tribute to a fading culture. The Limited Editions Book Club was a publishing firm that produced high quality copies of classic literature illustrated by a variety of top artists. By 1940, Limited Editions had published over 160 titles. They advertised that Benton is himself the reincarnation of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. See more

THIS WEEK IN BENTON HISTORY: Winston-Salem Journal October 25, 1937: Nineteen thirty-seven was a BIG year for Benton. Possibly the biggest and busiest of his career, judging from the sheer volume of articles written about him that year. (Seriously, ask anyone who has worked here, that year practically takes up a whole binder in our archives.) Just two years after publicly disparaging New York City (a cardinal sin to all who live there) and moving to Kansas City, he returne...d for a visit and got to show off how well he was doing. He came to celebrate the publication of his autobiography, he attended the opening of his own exhibition which featured many of the drawings in his book, and he was a sponsor at the opening of another exhibition of Missouri artists. Not too shabby, Tom. Even though we aren’t conducting tours of the Benton Home, you can still stop by and get his autobiography in the gift shopyou might want some good reading material for the coming months! See more

Two Stack Sternwheeler with Coal Barge ca. 1930-35 Ink & Sepia on Paper 8.75 x 11.75 Location as of [1996] Benton Testamentary Trust at UMB Bank Last week we noted the presence of a sternwheeler riverboat in Benton’s Trading at Westport Landing mural. Tom Benton was drawn to America’s rivers, both large and small, and devoted an entire chapter in his 1937 autobiography to them. Mark Twain was one of his favorite authors, and in 1944 he illustrated an edition of Life... on the Mississippi. Benton certainly had a nostalgic streak for the old technology, and tried to capture the machines and labor before the world sped up. Trains and riverboats were two of his beloved subjects to sketch, especially the old steam-powered ones. He didn’t see much of interest in the internal combustion engine. The diesel engine is more efficient but not nearly as visual as the steam locomotive Paint a picture of a diesel engine and you paint a box. A sternwheeler has 1 large paddlewheel at the rear (stern) of the riverboat, while the sidewheeler has a paddlewheel on each side. The former is generally more efficient, while the latter is wider but more maneuverable (the 2 wheels can run at different speeds). This sketch was exhibited in the Lasting Impressions: The Drawings of Thomas Hart Benton show at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 1991. See more

We wanted to share this video for Missouri Day, put together by Lee's Summit North High School teacher, Tavish Whiting. He kept busy driving all over the state to visit historic sites, recognize notable Missourians, Civil War battlefields, Native history, the Capitol and many more! This clip was filmed right here at the Benton Home. Be sure to thank those teachers who are going above and beyond for their students this year. https://youtu.be/2Ytj8xJrMgg

THIS WEEK IN BENTON HISTORY: Letter from Rep. Clement Zablocki to Thomas Hart Benton - October 18, 1951: Last week, we told you about Benton’s plea to Congress for flood relief for our region. So this week, we wanted to show you one of the responses. Rep. Zablocki of Wisconsin assured Tom that he would give any flood relief legislation his sympathetic consideration and thanked him for the Homecoming lithograph. We’ve learned from other letters Benton received that Congre...ss did pass some flood relief funds that fall. One representative said he was going to travel with the Army Corps of Engineers to inspect the region soon. While the legislation was already in the works when Benton sent his letters to Congress, it’s really interesting to go through all the responses he got and see how many were supportive of his efforts and grateful for the lithograph. In the archives at the Benton Home, we have 31 replies from senators and representatives; remember that if there’s a cause you care about, you too can use your 1st Amendment rights like Benton did to petition our legislators! See more

Trading at Westport Landing/Old Kansas City 1956 Egg tempera on Canvas on Panel 50 x 89 Location as of [current] The River Club, Kansas City MO Thomas Hart Benton did a fairly large mural for Harzfeld’s Department Store in Kansas City in 1947. Then as his style of art began to fall out of favor, he didn’t get too many commissions. But in the 2nd half of the 1950s, he once again started cranking out murals beginning five of them in five years. He did them for Lincoln ...University (1954-55), the New York State Power Authority in Massena (1956-57), the Truman Presidential Library (1958-61), the Power Authority in Niagara (1959-61), and this one for the private Kansas City River Club. The design of this particular mural has an odd chronological flow. Starting at the left foreground is probably the earliest scene - the hunter/scout wearing his coonskin cap, riding a mule. The largest grouping, in the center right foreground, is of a white trader showing off his goods to a Native American man. A young woman (possibly who they are trading for?) reclines on a rock beside them, with a pelt suggestively lying between her legs. On the extreme right side is a woman and young boy (maybe the trader’s family, maybe a completely separate scene) resting beside a wagon. We then move forward in time, but backwards in the picture. A team of oxen pulls a wagon up the steep hill, representing the role of Westport and the Town of Kansas as the outfitting and starting points for the Oregon/California Trails in the 1830s and ‘40s. Finally, in the background, are some buildings of the maturing Kansas City and more modern sternwheel steamboats of the 1850s and ‘60s. That hunter’s mule really gave Benton a lot of trouble. He said that the muscular formation of a mule is different than that of a horse. You’ve got to put a mule through its paces to understand the muscular formations. But there are damn few mules around anymore [in 1956]. Especially riding mules. With the help of his good friend Randall Jessee, Tom was finally able to locate one on a farm out south of town in Belton MO. They went down there so Randall could ride it back and forth while Benton sketched. It was probably worth it, as 109 members of the River Club pledged to raise the $8000 fee it took to hire Thomas Hart Benton for this project. The mural was unveiled on May 12th, 1956. See more