Born 1889, Neosho, Missouri
Died April 9, 1975, Kansas City, Missouri.

Highlights of Benton’s life can be found elsewhere. Here are a few notes about his career. It should not surprise us that someone named exactly after his great grandfather, who was a well known U.S. Senator and had a father who was a Missouri congressman, might take an entirely different path in life. We are fortunate that Thomas Hart Benton did. Benton did not come to his recognized regionalist genre by accident or at first attempt. He understood all forms of art and all forms that are used to create art, but he came to the conclusion (to the ridicule of many) that the artist must represent what is around him and thus be something of a recording historian of the times. All of Benton’s work after 1919 is based on the American Scene model and folklore.

Controversy: The media of the 1930’s praised the work of Benton, Wood, Curry and others as something that America must look up to. Thus it has been said that the artists were manipulated to produce what they did - simple media pressure - but it would be more correct to state that they painted and drew what they knew, what they felt and what they liked - and it happened to hit a responsive cord in America. And this is not to say that Benton did not have a radical social streak - witness the work Strike, 1933. Benton’s interpretation of what was around him is sometimes nostalgic in that figures are often seen laboring over rural tasks without the benefit of helpful machinery that was certainly available at the time Benton drew the scene. But these figures, twisting and sinuous that they are, give off an energy that the viewer feels.
Controversy also arose over the six prints Benton did for Darryl Zanuck to illustrate the film "Grapes of Wrath." Did he fall into to commercialism or was it that his work happened to fit the mold of what Zanuck was looking for?

His work was in the first selection offered by Associated American Artists (AAA) in 1934. Benton credits Reeves Lewenthal, founder of AAA for causing a number of the lithographs to see the light of day. George Miller printed Benton’s first lithograph "The Station", in 1929 and almost all of Benton’s lithographs thereafter until his son, Burr, took over the shop and Burr did the remainder. The larger works were done on zinc plates and these were prepared for Benton by Miller. Benton worked on many of the stones right in Miller’s shop.

If you are in Missouri, stop in at the state capitol in Jefferson City and see the murals Benton did in 1935 - 36.

The key reference work on Benton’s prints is "The Lithographs of Thomas Hart Benton", by Creekmore Fath, 3rd revised edition, 2001.