Hart Attack
Controversial American artist the subject of University Club January meeting
STORY BY
STEPHEN VRATTOS
For many sons, it
is de rigueur to
follow in their fathers’
footsteps, taking
up the family business
with their heirs in line
to do the same. When
born into a family of
local renown, as was the
case with Missouri artist
Thomas Hart Benton,
whose family business—
politics—traced back to
the very establishment
of the state, the pressure
and expectation must
have been tremendous,
especially when sidled
with the additional onus
of being named after the
family’s founding historic
political patriarch. To
eschew one’s destiny under such
conditions might be considered
foolhardy, perhaps brave, but regardless,
controversial. And it was
his decision to do so which defined
Thomas Hart Benton’s life.
Benton was the subject of the
University Club meeting, Thursday
evening, January 25. The fascinating
examination was supplied via
video, a PBS documentary created
by ace documentarian Ken Burns,
which originally aired in 1988, a
baker’s dozen years after the artist’s
death in 1975. A Burns’ production,
no matter the subject, is a
guaranteed treat, but the event was
enhanced further with an introduction
by Phyllis Teplitz, NST resident
and former career art dealer, who
was also available for a question
and answer session following the
presentation.
Benton was born and raised in
Neosho, Missouri, in 1988. Fiery
and defiant, he spent his childhood
in constant battle with his
father, Colonel Maecenas Benton,
a lawyer and four-time–elected U.S.
congressman, who named his son
after his own great-uncle, Thomas
Hart Benton, one of the first two
United States Senators elected from
Missouri. Even shipping the young
rebel to military school did nothing
to assuage his artistic leanings and
Benton eventually succeeded in his
father allowing him to enroll in The
Art Institute of Chicago in 1907.
But even the triumph over
his father and seeming success
in taking the reins of his life did
little to settle the Benton or curb
his contrarian nature. After two
years in Chicago, he continued
his studies in Paris, returning to
America four years thereafter, the
southern-raised aspiring painter
settling in New York City. At that
time, the art world was in the throes
of Modernism, led by the likes of
Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse,
a movement Benton—true to his
nature—defied, declaring himself
“an enemy of Modernism.” Along
with American artists Grant Wood
and John Steuart Curry, Benton
dedicated his life to naturalistic
and representational work, which
became known as “Regionalism,”
an appellation fittingly averse to
Benton, whose work encompassed
the entirety of life in America and
never one singular region.
Even within this new self-created
art movement, Benton stirred
up controversy, no more so than
with his commission for the 1933
Century of Progress Exhibition
(World’s Fair) in Chicago.
Measuring a Brobdingnagian
12-feet high by 250-feet long, the
Indiana Murals, brought Benton
mainstream attention, as well as
vociferous criticism for their wartsand
all depiction of Indiana history,
including the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1935, Benton
returned to his native
Missouri to paint
what he would later
cite as his “best
work,” a mural for the
Missouri State Capitol
in Jefferson City, again
creating a furor over his
portrayal of regional
history, showcasing
such subjects as slavery,
outlaw Jesse James,
and political boss,
Tom Pendergast. He
settled in Kansas City
and began teaching
at her eponymous Art
Institute. It is ironic,
yet apropos, his most
famous student was
Jackson Pollack, the
later founded of the
Abstract Expressionist
movement, whose style
is the antithesis of his mentor’s.
Controversy continued to follow
Benton literally to his last dying
breath. He was discovered by his
wife dead one late night in 1975,
bent over what would be his final
commission, a mural, entitled “The
Sources of Country Music,” for
the Country Music Hall of Fame
in Nashville, Tennessee. Brush in
hand, Benton’s body sat poised in
the lower right-hand corner, as if
to sign, only to have death interrupt
him.
Burns, as ever, fills this paean to
Benton with characters befitting
one of his subject’s murals, a colorful
collection of critics, family and
friends. Now more than two score
later, Benton’s legacy of contention
continues among the critics, equal
sides venerating or eviscerating his
work and place among the annals
of art, a debate of which Benton
would surely approve.
Don’t miss “In the Heights”
The University Club is hitting the road to see
the 1999 Tony award Best Musical recipient, “In
the Heights,” at the John W. Engeman Theater in
Northport on Wednesday, April 25. A chartered
bus will take 20 members to the matinee performance,
which begins at 2 p.m., followed by
an early dinner. Price and final details are still
being determined, but anyone interested should
contact either Shirley Wershba at 347-408-4270
or Toby Wasserman at 347-502-7557.
Tickets will be reserved on a FIRST COME,
FIRST SERVED basis.
40 NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER ¢ March 2018