New Deal Politics and Regionalist Art: Thomas Hart Benton's A Social History of the State of Indiana

Abstract

The past two decades have seen a plethora of new information on American artist Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975). Matthew Baigell pioneered Benton studies with his monograph on the artist in 1974, and Karal Ann Marling enhanced the subject with her survey of the artist's drawings in 1985. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City developed and traveled an extensive show of Benton's paintings in the late 1980s and produced an extensive biography by curator Henry Adams. The centennial of Benton's birth generated even more material: exhibits of his prints and drawings, volumes of essays on his art and character, and a considerable number of magazine and journal articles assessing his importance in 20thcentury American culture. Even Prospects has done its part for Bentonia with essays by Marling (1981) and Barbara Ladner (1990).