Though standing just 5’3” tall, Thomas Hart Benton, like the large and vibrant murals for which he’s known, was a figure difficult to miss. From an early age, the native Missourian strutted around with an unyielding attitude—I’ll do things how I want, thank you very much! (His father sometimes called him “Big I.”) This brusque personality remained with Benton all his life, a trait which steered him into plenty of conflict and controversy.
But Benton was not a one-dimensional man, defined only by his boisterous disposition. In Ken Burns’ 1988 documentary, this comes through in various ways, especially in interviews with the late painter’s friends, family members, and former students.
Indeed, there’s quite a lot to admire about Benton. He valued art and creativity over money or profit. He stood firm in the face of criticisms, even when arrows came hurling at him from multiple directions (oftentimes simultaneously). He devoted himself to his craft for seven prodigious decades, before finally passing away at the side of a recently finished painting
But without a doubt, Benton was a fireball. The opening of Burns’ documentary shows a friend of the late painter, fondly reminiscing about his personality: “Tom Benton had the vivacity and pugnaciousness of a bantam rooster. [He was] never at a loss for words.”
Perhaps that makes sense, given that Benton was born into a family of politicians. His uncle was a senator (Andrew Jackson once took a bullet from his gun), and his father was a congressman. Both had fiery dispositions.
Hotheadedness aside, father and son shared few characteristics, including plans about the boy’s future. His father hoped his son would one day enter the political arena. His mother, however, supported her son’s artistic ambitions.
In the end, the budding artist got what he wanted. After a brief stint in a military academy (per his father’s insistence), Benton entered the Chicago Art Institute.
There, his fiery personality continued to crackle. He apparently barged into classes he wasn’t enrolled in (and didn’t have prerequisites for), and behaved like a pesky outlaw, refusing to abide by standards or the specifics of instruction. (One might wonder why he was set on going to the art school in the first place.)
Some of his teachers, however, saw past his loud and unwieldy exterior; they saw a young artist with considerable potential, and suggested to him that he study in Paris. Remarkably, his father allowed him to go.
The French capital was of course ripe with artists, which allowed Benton to try his hand at a variety of styles. One of these was synchronism, a new movement founded that placed a great deal of emphasis on color and its ostensible relationship to sound.
Benton’s time in Paris was cut short, however, when his mother made a visit and discovered that he had an older mistress. After being dragged back across the Atlantic, Benton soon moved to New York City, where he wound up living two decades. It was there that he met and married his wife, became a father, and toiled away as an artist, working mainly in the modernist vein.
Had Benton continued working in this style and living on the east coast, it’s possible that he may never have achieved significant fame. But a visit to his ailing father in Missouri fundamentally altered his outlook on both life and art.
Not only did he mend his fractious relationship with his father, he was fueled with a powerful urge to reconnect with his midwestern roots. He longed to understand the region’s people and character, its tempos, rhythms, and way of life (which contrasted so sharply with the pulse of New York).
Before long, Benton moved his family to Missouri, where he became increasingly cleareyed about who the kind of artist he wanted to be. “I wanted more than anything else to make pictures,” he said, “the imagery of which would carry unmistakable American meanings for Americans.”
This is what we best know Benton for today: his massive murals (some of which are as long as a city block), their lively and undulating forms, their representations of life in the midwest.
In 1933, his Indiana murals appeared at the Chicago’s World Fair. The following year, Benton appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, the first artist to do so.
But both then and now, Benton has had plenty of detractors. His Indiana murals, for instance, weren’t lauded by everyone. Some Hoosiers disliked parts of the subject matter, including a coal mine strike. And as for art critics of Benton’s day, many tended to completely shun Benton’s style and subject matter outright. (The relationship, however, was mutual, as Benton would regularly hurl insults and criticisms at the New York art world, which he found elitist.)
Closer to our own time, one prominent art critic in the documentary, Hilton Kramer, opines that Benton failed miserably at capturing America of the 1930s: “It’s a kind of cartoon version of what America was at that time.” Another critic in the film echoes this sentiment. Interestingly, however, Kramer has high praise for Benton’s ability as a writer, particularly the prose in his autobiography, An American Artist. In Kramer’s eyes, Benton should have been a writer, not a painter.
One might dislike Benton’s paintings for any number of reasons—as of course is true for any artist—but there’s something to be said for someone who’s able to express themselves both visually and with the written word. Benton was also an avid musician.
Ken Burns’ documentary, though it’s now over thirty years old, is a good resource for better understanding the multifaceted life of this cantankerous 20th-century artist.
Spectatio 