| Description |
xi, 364 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-349) and index. |
| Contents |
Thomas Hart Benton and Martha's Vineyard -- Thomas Hart Benton's fall from grace -- The drawings of Thomas Hart Benton -- Thomas Hart Benton as a teacher -- Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock -- Benton, country music and the railroad song -- Thomas Hart Benton's illustrations for The grapes of wrath -- Thomas Hart Benton and African American subjects -- Benton and the world at war : the year of peril -- Flood disaster -- A tribute to Creekmore Fath -- A newly discovered bookplate by Thomas Hart Benton and its place in Benton's oeuvre -- The Benton fake game -- Afterword : the new generation of Benton scholarship. |
| Summary |
Thomas Hart Benton, arguably the single most controversial figure in the history of American art, played a major role in shaping three separate movements in American art: the early American modernism of the 1910s and '20s; the Reigonalism of the 1930s (a movement he led in partnership with Grant Wood); and finally (through his influence on his pupil Jackson Pollock) the Abstract Expressionism of the 1940s. Benton was also a notable writer, whose autobiography, An Artist in America, became a best seller. He was a gifted musician who collected folk tunes, devised a new form of musical notation for the harmonica (which is still widely used by music publishers), and performed with his son on a record produced by Decca records, Saturday Night at Tom Benton's. No other American artist has generated so many myths - or so many misunderstandings. This new book of essays by Henry Adams - who organized a major retrospective of Benton's work in 1989 on the centennial of the artist's birth, worked on a documentary about Benton with Ken Burns, and compiled a catalogue raisonné of his paintings - is selected from twenty-five years of writing on Benton and the controversies about his work. Varied in their approaches, these essays form an intimate biography of Benton in a series of close-up snapshots that hone in on key questions about his work. -- from dust jacket. |
| Subject |
Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975 -- Criticism and interpretation.
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Painters -- United States -- Biography.
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Benton, Thomas Hart, -- Criticism and interpretation.
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Painters -- Biography. -- United States.
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Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975. (OCoLC)fst00035555
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Painters. (OCoLC)fst01050530
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United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
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| Genre/Form |
Biographies. (OCoLC)fst01919896
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Biography. (OCoLC)fst01423686
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Criticism, interpretation, etc. (OCoLC)fst01411635
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Biographies.
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| ISBN |
9780826220509 (hardcover) |
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0826220509 (hardcover) |
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