Oral history interview with Thomas Hart Benton

OralHistoryResource

Oral history interview with Thomas Hart Benton

1973 July 23-24

Interview of Thomas Hart Benton conducted 1973 July 23-24, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art. Benton speaks of his childhood in Missouri and Washington, D.C., working as a newspaper cartoonist, and classes at the Chicago Art Institute (1907-1908) and the Academie Julian in Paris (1908). He discusses the New York art world, painting scenes for silent movies, the "Stieglitz Society," the synchromist and regionalist movements, John Weichsel and the People's Art Guild, teaching at the Art Students League and the Kansas City Art Institute, murals and mural techniques, lithographic illustrations, drawings, and World War II propaganda posters. He recalls Thomas Craven, Rex Ingram, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Jackson Pollock, Alma Reed, Boardman Robinson, and others.

Sound recording: 2 sound tape reels ; 5 in.Transcript: 68 p.

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7609633

Archives of American Art

Related Entities

There are 10 Entities related to this resource.

Cummings, Paul (Singer)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w66m39mt (person)

Littlefield was a painter, writer and art collector; New York, N.Y. Died 1969. Cummings, an art historian, was an expert on drawings and prints. From the description of William Horace Littlefield letters and photographs to Paul Cummings, 1951-1969. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122390381 Art historian and editor; New York, N.Y. From the description of Paul Cummings papers, 1967-1993. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122594609 ...

Pollock, Jackson, 1912-1956

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6bk1jrn (person)

Jackson Pollock was born in 1912, in Cody, Wyoming, the youngest of five sons. His family moved several times during his childhood, finally settling in Los Angeles. In 1930 he joined his older brother, Charles, in New York City, and studied with Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Pollock worked during the 1930s for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. During 1936 he worked in artist David Alfaro Siqueiros's Experimental Workshop. In...

Reed, Alma M.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6m61rm1 (person)

Robinson, Boardman, 1876-1952

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6862hqr (person)

American cartoonist and artist. From the description of Boardman Robinson cartoon, n.d. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 123429645 Correspondence to Lewis and Sophia Mumford from Boardman Robinson and his wife, Sally Robinson. From the description of Letters, 1929-1949, n.d., to Lewis and Sophia Mumford. (University of Pennsylvania Library). WorldCat record id: 155875235 Biographical/Historical Note Ame...

Ingram, Rex, 1895-1969

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gb3k0s (person)

Craven, Thomas, 1889-....

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6c24wr2 (person)

Born in Kansas; graduate of Kansas Weslyan University; varied career as a reporter, teacher, free lance writer, and lecturer; considered a leader in the awakening of American art. From the description of Letter, [ca. 1940] March 28. (University of Southern Mississippi, Regional Campus). WorldCat record id: 17359223 Writer, author, lecturer, art critic. From the description of Thomas Craven letter to Alfred S. Dashiell [manuscript], 1931 December 13 and 14. (Unive...

Stieglitz, Alfred, 1864-1946

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tt4p3p (person)

Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer, founder of the Photo-Secession Group, gallery owner, and editor and publisher of photography magazines, most notably, Camera Work. Frank Hermann was an American painter, who spent most of his career in Germany, where he associated with several avant-garde art groups. Childhood friends, Stieglitz and Herrmann were schoolmates, spent time together when Stieglitz was in Europe, and visited each other in the United States when Herrmann returned in 1919....

Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w67w6dp5 (person)

Thomas Hart Benton (April 15, 1889 – January 19, 1975) was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. The fluid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the United States. His work is strongly associated with the Midwestern United States, the region in which he was born and which he called home for most of his life. He also studied in Paris, lived in New York City f...

Macdonald-Wright, Stanton, 1890-1973

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r49tk0 (person)

American artist; co-founder of the Synchromism movement. From the description of Autograph letter signed : [postmarked Santa Monica], to Morgan Russell, 1929 Aug. 18. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270606816 Painter; Los Angeles, California. From the description of Oral history interview with Stanton Macdonald-Wright, 1967 May 26 [sound recording]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 81393723 "Noted American painter Stanton Macdonald-Wright ... was hired to p...

Weichsel, John, 1870-1946

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w63j4tpp (person)

Founder and president of People's Art Guild, 1915-1922, an artists' cooperative devoted to improving and expanding knowledge of art and the art world among the general public, thereby increasing art appreciation and patronage. From the description of John Weichsel papers, 1905-1922. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122545776 ...