Persephone
Framed: 87 x 71 x 5 inches (220.98 x 180.34 x 12.7 cm)
- 220
Thomas Hart Benton Retrospective, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, MO, March 20–April 3, 1939, no cat.
Thomas Hart Benton: Retrospective Exhibition, Associated American Artists Galleries, New York, April 18–May 12, 1939, no. 21.
Brentano’s Bookstore, Fifth Avenue at West Forty-eighth Street, New York, October 1939, no cat.
International Art Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, October 19–December 10, 1939, no. 32.
Seven Centuries of Painting: A Loan Exhibition of Old and Modern Masters, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, December 29, 1939–January 28, 1940, no. 234.
Thomas Hart Benton, Dallas Museum, February 4–25, 1940, no cat.
Survey of American Painting, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, October 24–December 15, 1940, no. 353.
Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe Night Club, New York, April 1941.
American Life, Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, MA, November 22–December 31, 1942, no. 6.
Benton Retrospective, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE, November 14–December 30, 1951, unnumbered.
Thomas Hart Benton, University of Kansas Museum of Art, Lawrence, April 12–May 18, 1958, no. 30.
Art Department Gallery, University of Missouri, Columbia, March 20–31, 1961, no cat.
[“Thomas Hart Benton Retrospective”], Neosho Municipal Auditorium, MO, May 1962, no cat.
Thomas Hart Benton: A Giant in American Art, University Art Gallery, University of Arizona, Tucson, October 15, 1962–October 23, 1963 (traveled), no. 19 (except at Bloomfield Art Association, Birmingham, MI, no. 25).
Missouri Pavilion, New York World’s Fair, Missouri Cultural Exhibit, March 12, 1964–November 10, 1965, unnumbered.
Mid-America in the Thirties: The Regionalist Art of Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood, Des Moines Art Center, IA, December 10, 1965–January 16, 1966, no. 16.
Thomas Hart Benton Exhibition, Birmingham Arts Festival, Bloomfield Art Association, Birmingham, Mich., October 1–23, 1966, no cat.
Thomas Hart Benton: A Personal Commemorative, Spiva Art Center, Missouri Southern State College, Joplin, March 24–April 27, 1973, unnumbered.
A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977–1987. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 14–December 6, 1987, no. 79.
Thomas Hart Benton: An American Original, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 16, 1989–July 22, 1990 (traveled), no. 42.
Thomas Hart Benton, Museo d’Arte Moderna della Citta di Lugano, Villa Malpensata, Lugano, Switzerland, September 5–November 15, 1992, no. 51.
Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo.; Saint Louis Art Museum; and Toledo Museum of Art, October 8, 1995–September 22, 1996 (traveled), unnumbered.
Bingham to Benton: The Midwest as Muse, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 5–July 31, 2005, no cat.
Benton's Persephone appears as a sunbathing farm girl. Hades is shown as a lustful, aging farmer with a rickety cart for his chariot. His facial features appear similar to Benton's own, although he used a local model. The creek-side setting suggests an arcadian landscape as well as a likely venue for skinny-dipping. Shamelessly naked, Persephone evokes Old Master female nudes in addition to modern pin-ups.
To Benton Trust, UMB Bank, n.a., Trustee, 1975;
To The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1986.
“Benton’s Nudes People the Ozarks,” LIFE, February 20, 1939, 38–39 (as Rape of Persephone).
“Thomas Hart Benton’s New Exhibition Offered Today,” Kansas City Journal, March 19, 1939, 22.
“A Benton Show at Gallery: Artist’s Exhibition to New York after Ten Days Here,” Kansas City Star, March 19, 1939, 12A.
Henry Haskell, “A Changing Benton Appears in Gallery’s New Show,” Kansas City Star, March 24, 1939, 19.
“The Metamorphosis of Thomas Hart Benton,” Art Digest 13 (April 15, 1939), 10.
Edward Alden Jewell, “Benton Canvases Open New Gallery,” New York Times, April 18, 1939, 24.
Paul Bird, “The Fortnight in New York,” Art Digest 13 (May 1, 1939), 18.
Doris Brian, “A Heralded and Popular Painter, Benton Seen in Retrospective,” Art News 37 (May 6, 1939), 14.
Howard Devree, “Benton Returns,” Magazine of Art 32 (May 1939), 301–2.
“Benton’s West in East,” Kansas City Star, July 9, 1939, 14A.
Seven Centuries of Painting: A Loan Exhibition of Old and Modern Masters at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor and the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, exh. cat. (San Francisco: Recorder Press, 1939), 57, fi g. 234.
Thomas Craven, A Treasury of Art Masterpieces from the Renaissance to the Present Day (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939), 578–79.
Thomas Craven, A Descriptive Catalog of the Works of Thomas Hart Benton: Spotlighting the Important Periods during the Artist’s Thirty-two Years of Painting, exh. cat. (New York: Associated American Artists, 1939), 45.
“Persephone—Oil Painting by Thomas Benton,” American Artist 4 (March 1940), 4.
Gibson Danes, “The Creation of Thomas Benton’s Persephone,” American Artist 4 (March 1940), 5–10.
“Look Out, Susannah!” Art Digest 14 (May 15, 1940), 13.
“It’s a Gift,” Art Digest 15 (October 15, 1940), 26.
“Carnegie Institute Presents Great Survey of American Painting,” Art Digest 15 (November 1, 1940), 29.
“Popular Painting in American Survey,” Carnegie Magazine 14 (December 1940), 195.
Peyton Boswell Jr., Modern American Painting (New York: Dodd, Mead, & Company, 1940), 63–64, 69.
Survey of American Painting, exh. cat. (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute, 1940), unpaginated.
“Benton Rejoices as Art Is Hung in ‘Saloon’; ‘Persephone’ Adorns the Diamond Horseshoe,” New York Times, April 9, 1941, 27.
Edward Alden Jewell, “Paintings on View of Thomas Benton,” New York Times, April 9, 1941, 30.
H. D., “Among the Other Shows,” New York Times, April 13, 1941, X10.
“Blast by Benton,” Art Digest 15 (April 15, 1941), 6, 19.
“Rose Rescues Persephone,” Art Digest 15 (April 15, 1941), 19.
Milton Brown, “From Salon to Saloon,” Parnassus 13 (May 1941), 193–94.
Leonard Lyon, “Broadway Bulletins: Art Department,” Washington Post, April 13, 1942, 14.
John D. Weaver, “Missouri Master,” Collier’s 109 (June 13, 1942), 17 (as The Rape of Persephone).
“‘American Life’ Exhibit at Springfield Museum,” Springfield (Mass.) Sunday Union and Republican, November 22, 1942, 6E.
American Life, exh. brochure (Springfield, Mass.: Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, 1942), unpaginated.
“Thomas Benton Answers Questions,” Demcourier 13 (February 1943), 5.
Reginald Marsh, “Thomas Benton,” Demcourier 13 (February 1943), 9–10.
Ralph M. Pearson, Experiencing American Pictures (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943), 144–46.
“Benton’s ‘Persephone’ Is Now Here!” New York Times, March 13, 1944, 3.
Leonard Lyons, “Broadway Potpourri,” Washington Post, March 13, 1944, 10.
Thomas H. Benton (New York: American Artists Group, 1945), unpaginated.
“‘Spring on the Missouri’ in Benton’s Chicago Show,” Kansas City Star, February 24, 1946, 7A (as The Rape of Persephone).
“Chicago Views Benton, Midwest Dickens,” Art Digest 20 (March 1, 1946), 14.
H. W. Janson, “Benton and Wood, Champions of Regionalism,” Magazine of Art 39 (May 1946), 185.
Naomi Jolles, “He-Man Artist,” Liberty 24 (February 15, 1947), 26–27, 83.
George Nelson, “Venus, Persephone, and September Morn,” Interiors 107 (May 1947), 85–88.
“Publishers Join Forces,” New York Times, August 1, 1951, 21.
“Thomas Benton in Omaha. . .An American Artist Has One of His Best Shows,” Newsweek, December 3, 1951, 56.
Thomas Hart Benton, An Artist in America, rev. ed. (New York: Twayne Publishers with University of Kansas Press, 1951), vi, xiii, 281–83, unpaginated plate.
Benton Retrospective, exh. cat. (Omaha, Neb.: Joslyn Art Museum, 1951), unpaginated.
“By Decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, ‘The Miracle’ Will Resume Performances Tomorrow,” New York Times, June 15, 1952, X4 (advertisement).
“Visitor Easily Feels at Home on Call to Thomas H. Benton,” Kansas City Star, May 6, 1955, 8.
Thomas Hart Benton, exh. cat. (Lawrence: University of Kansas Museum of Art, 1958), unpaginated.
José Geraldo Vieira, “As artes plásticas nos Estados Unidos,” Habitat (São Paulo, Brazil) 11 (January 1960), 26–27 (as Persefone).
“Missouri Artist Feted at Reception,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 5, 1961, 1J.
Robert K. Sanford, “Benton’s Impact on American Art,” Kansas City Star, December 2, 1961, 8E.
Robert K. Sanford, “Neosho Makes Big Plans for Tom Benton’s Homecoming,” Kansas City Star, April 15, 1962, 2D.
“Neosho to Honor Its Most Famous Native Son, Thomas Hart Benton,” Republican-Times (Trenton, Mo.), May 11, 1962, 1.
Thomas Hart Benton: A Giant in American Art, exh. cat. (Tucson: University of Arizona, 1962), unpaginated.
Robert K. Sanford, “Tom Benton’s Art Show Recalls Stormy Career,” Kansas City Star, June 23, 1963, 1–2D.
Robert K. Sanford, “Benton Never Fell Off His Horse,” Kansas City Star, July 28, 1963, 9E.
Thomas Hart Benton Exhibition: A Giant in American Art, exh. cat. (Birmingham, Mich.: Bloomfield Art Association, 1963), unpaginated.
Shirley Althoff, “Tom Benton at 75,” Globe-Democrat Sunday Magazine (St. Louis, MO), June 21, 1964, 6.
“Missouri Cultural Exhibit Features Missouri Artists and Missouri History at New York World’s Fair,” Missouri Historical Review 58 (July 1964), 481.
Sue Ann Wood, “The Search for Missouri at the World’s Fair,” St. Louis Magazine 2 (October 1964), 29, 41.
Robert K. Sanford, “Benton Art Displayed at Springfield, Mo., Show,” Kansas City Star, [1964?], clipping, NAMA curatorial files.
Mid-America in the Thirties: The Regionalist Art of Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood, exh. cat. (Des Moines, Iowa: Des Moines Art Center, 1965), unpaginated.
Carolyn Hall, “Largest Benton Show Featured at the BAA,” Birmingham (Mich.) Eccentric, October 6, 1966, clipping, NAMA curatorial files.
Joy Hakanson, “Tom Benton in Review; Snyder-Vihos Duet,” Detroit News, October 9, 1966, 2E.
Alfred Eisenstaedt, Witness to Our Times (New York: Viking Press, 1966), 78 (as The Rape of Persephone).
Maurice Zolotow, “Lots of Barnum, a Little Napoleon,” New York Times, March 17, 1968, BR8.
Earl Conrad, Billy Rose: Manhattan Primitive (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1968), 142, unpaginated plate.
Thomas Hart Benton, An American in Art: A Professional and Technical Autobiography (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1969), 5, 114.
Jules Loh, “Resident Artist and Sage: Benton Misses Land of His Youth,” Kansas City Star, March 15, 1970, 7F.
Thomas Hart Benton, exh. cat. (Madison, Wisc.: Madison Art Center, 1970), unpaginated.
“The Varieties of U.S. Art,” Kansas City Star, February 14, 1971, 3D.
Jim Lapham, “Tom Benton’s Estate: Portrait of the Artist as a Taxpayer?” Kansas City Star Magazine, June 20, 1971, 10.
Thomas Moore, “Tom Benton, 83: Never Argue with Youth,” LIFE, July 14, 1972, 73.
Irwin Gross, “Parting Shots,” letter to the editors, LIFE, August 4, 1972, 27.
“Kansas City Classic,” Kansas City Star, June 3, 1973, 1E.
Robert S. Gallagher, “An Artist in America,” American Heritage 24 (June 1973), 89.
Britannica Encyclopedia of American Art (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corp., 1973), 66.
Thomas Hart Benton: A Personal Commemorative, exh. cat. ( Joplin: Spiva Art Center, Missouri Southern State College, 1973), 53.
Henry J. Seldis, “Benton’s Americana in the Italian Manner,” Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1974, Calendar sec., 80.
Matthew Baigell, The American Scene: American Painting of the 1930s (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974), 92, pl. 13.
Matthew Baigell, Thomas Hart Benton (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1974), 10, 150–51, 156, 176.
Ralph T. Coe, “Thomas Benton: Reformed Radical,” in Thomas Hart Benton: An Artist’s Selection, 1908–19, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1974), unpaginated.
William H. Gerdts, The Great American Nude: A History in Art (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974), 178.
Alden Whitman, “Thomas Hart Benton, Whose Paintings Reflected His Hardy Americanism, Is Dead,” New York Times, January 21, 1975, 23.
“Tom Benton’s Kansas City Legacy and ‘Persephone,’” Kansas City Times, February 28, 1975, 34.
Margaret Olwine, “The Day They Rehung the Benton House Paintings,” Kansas City Star Magazine, January 9, 1977, 11.
“From the Pages of American Artist,” American Artist 41 (February 1977), 26.
Wilma Yeo and Helen K. Cook, Maverick with a Paintbrush: Thomas Hart Benton (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1977), 82–83, 85–86.
Victor Koshkin-Youritzin, “Thomas Hart Benton: ‘Bathers’ Rediscovered,” Arts Magazine 54 (May 1980), 98, 100–101, 102n50.
Benton’s Bentons, exh. cat. (Lawrence, Kans.: Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art, 1980), 64.
Patricia Ewing Pace, “You’ll Find Some Authentic Bentons . . . Right under Your Very Nose,” Kansas City Star, April 27, 1981, 1B.
Harold Osborne, ed., The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 53.
Polly Burroughs, Thomas Hart Benton: A Portrait (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1981), 134–35, 137, 146.
Erika Lee Doss, “Regionalists in Hollywood: Painting, Film, and Patronage, 1925–1945,” Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1983, 64, 225–27, 231, 234, 246.
Robert W. Butler, “Walls of Art of Thomas Hart Benton,” Kansas City Star, August 11, 1985, 11E.
Karal Ann Marling, Tom Benton and His Drawings: A Biographical Essay and a Collection of His Sketches, Studies, and Mural Cartoons (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985), 27, 32, 105, 168–69, 172–74, 177–78, 222–23.
Henry Adams, Thomas Hart Benton: An Intimate View, exh. cat. (Kansas City, Mo.: Fine Arts Gallery, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, 1985), 15, 23.
Ann Lowry, “Tom Benton Gets Respect,” Kansas City Magazine, November 1986, 32–34.
David Goldstein, “Gallery to Buy Benton’s Masterpiece,” Kansas City Times, December 12, 1986, A1, A13.
“Nelson Gallery Buys Painting to Keep It in the State,” Sun (Parsons, Kans.), December 12, 1986, clipping, NAMA curatorial files.
“Nelson Gallery Buys Benton Painting,” Register (Iola, Kans.), December 12, 1986, 2.
“Gallery Digs Deep for Benton,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 13, 1986, 2A.
“Nelson Gallery to Acquire Benton’s ‘Persephone,’” Independence (Mo.) Examiner, December 13, 1986, 7.
“Persephone Stays Home,” Kansas City Times, December 13, 1986, A18.
“Kansas City Museum to Buy Benton Painting,” New York Times, December 14, 1986, 117.
“Picture Purchased,” Reporter (Independence, Kans.), December 14, 1986, C8.
“Nelson Gallery Buys Major Benton Work,” Jefferson City (Mo.) News and Tribune, December 14, 1986, 22.
“Nelson Gallery Pays $2.5 Million for Benton Work,” Advocate (Columbus, Kans.), December 15, 1986, 2.
Rev. Loren R. Green Sr., “Shocking Picture,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Times, December 25, 1986, A6.
“Expensive Acquisition,” Omaha (Neb.) Morning World-Herald, December 26, 1986, clipping, NAMA curatorial files.
Edwin B. Constant, “Inspiration: Story Involves Origin of Persephone,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Star, December 28, 1986, 4I.
Thomas G. Vanderford, “Hard to Believe,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Times, December 30, 1986, A6.
Russ Millin, “Uncovered, Unclean,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Times, December 30, 1986, A6.
William H. Goetzmann and William N. Goetzmann, The West of the Imagination (New York: Norton, 1986), 383–84.
George H. Gurley Jr., “A Modest, Tasteful Proposal,” Kansas City Times, January 3, 1987, B1.
Donald Hoffmann, “Finding a Place for ‘Persephone,’” Kansas City Star, January 4, 1987, 1D, 9D.
Frank Peters, “2.5 Million Benton,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 4, 1987, 4D.
Mike Judge, “Now Just What Kind of Pervert Creates Totally Nude Pieces of So-Called Art?” editorial cartoon, Kansas City Times, January 6, 1987, A4.
Arthur N. Wilkins, “Picture Justified,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Times, January 6, 1987, A4.
J. Daniel Bilyeu, “In Living Color,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Star, January 7, 1987, 15A.
Jay W. Wright, “Deepest Sympathy,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Times, January 8, 1987, A12.
Margaret S. Johnson, “Looms Larger,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Star, January 9, 1987, 10A.
Lois Kellogg, “Striking Photo,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Star, January 12, 1987, 9A.
Carol Ried, “Nelson-Atkins Builds on Its Strengths,” Kansas City View, January 13–26, 1987, 8.
Caroline Johnson, “Museum to Purchase Benton’s ‘Best’ Work,” Tulsa (Okla.) Tribune, January 16, 1987, 10C.
George Gurley, “A Modest Proposal Amended,” Kansas City Times, January 17, 1987, B1.
William Robbins, “In Kansas City, to Be Nude Is Lewd,” New York Times, January 18, 1987, 20.
William Robbins, “Front Page Photo of Nude Painting Embroils Kansas City Readers,” Post-Tribune (Gary, Ind.), January 18, 1987, A6.
Wesley Pruden, “When the Naked Truth Shames Us All,” Washington Times, January 19, 1987, 2A.
William Robbins, “All the Nude That’s Fit to Print: Baring of Benton Painting Raises Ruckus in Kansas City,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.), January 19, 1987, A2.
“Community’s Values Laid Bare: Photo Showing Painting of Nude Greek Goddess Offend Paper’s Readers,” Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, January 19, 1987, 3A.
Helen K. Cook, “Persephone Will Survive All the Uproar,” Kansas City Star, January 20, 1987, 8A.
“Nude in Kansas City,” Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.), January 21, 1987, A10.
William Robbins, “Kansas City Bares Feeling over Nude Picture on Page 1,” Republic (Phoenix, Ariz.), January 25, 1987, F9.
Keith Wright, “TV Underhanded in Its Effects,” Tribune (Chanute, Kans.), January 27, 1987, 2.
William Robbins, “Kansas City Saw Red: Nude Painting Sparks a Lively Debate,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 1, 1987, 3.
April McClellan, “They Were Bent on Getting the Picture,” Kansas City Times, February 2, 1987, B1.
Elaine Thomas, “More Than Cows,” letter to the editor, PostStandard (Syracuse, N.Y.), February 4, 1987, A9.
Donald Hoffmann, “Sale of Bingham Ups Ante,” Kansas City Star, February 8, 1987, 7D.
Eleanor Jeffries, “Warning to Prudes,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Star, February 9, 1987, 9A.
Mary H. Oritz, “Pure Pornography,” letter to the editor, February 1987, clipping, Scrapbook, NAMA Archives.
Jeff Matteson, “Thomas Hart Benton: A Missouri Original,” Missourian (Columbia, Mo.), 6 March 1987, 1C.
Ulrike Henn, “Göttin als Störenfried,” art: Das Kunstmagazin, March 1987, 18.
Emmet Murphy, “Art Hotline,” Art Business News, March 1987, 112.
Joe Klopus, “Benton Birthday Bash Draws Art, Party Lovers,” Kansas City Times, April 13, 1987, B3.
“Admirers Toast Works of Thomas Hart Benton,” New York Times, April 14, 1987, A16.
Donald Hoffmann, “Benton Event of Questionable Value,” Kansas City Star, April 19, 1987, 7D.
Robert Sanford, “Fans of Thomas Hart Benton Hear Some Disparaging Words,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 19, 1987, 1C.
Deborah Gimelson, “American Paintings: A Market Conversation,” Art & Auction 9 (April 1987), 116.
Emmet Murphy, “Art Hotline,” Art Business News, April 1987, 124.
George Gurley, “Aesthetes See Benton as Heretic,” Kansas City Times, May 14, 1987, B1, B7.
“Art or Porn?” Event, Spring 1987, 9–10, cover.
Elizabeth Broun, “Thomas Hart Benton: A Politician in Art,” American Art 1 (Spring 1987), 69–70.
Thomas Boylston Adams, “Twin States Born of Compromise,” Boston Globe, June 27, 1987, 17.
Hilton Kramer, “In Art, Politics, Missouri Goes Her Own Way,” Kansas City Star, August 2, 1987, 1M.
Hilton Kramer, “The Benton Affair: A Showdown in the Show Me State,” Art and Antiques 20 (Summer 1987), 114.
“Dressed for Success,” Kansas City Star, October 18, 1987, 5D.
Charles Burke, “Nelson Boasts Fruits of Bountiful Decade,” Independence (Mo.) Examiner, November 13, 1987, 8.
A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977–1987. exh. cat. (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson–Atkins Museum of Art, 1987), 180–81, 263.
Tom Jackman, “Benton Painting Taken in Burglary,” Kansas City Times, February 17, 1988, B2.
“Framed Again,” Kansas City Times, April 16, 1988, C1.
Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1988), 130–31.
“Art at the National Gallery,” New York Times, March 12, 1989, XX3.
Toni Wood, “Redressing Benton’s Creative Abandon,” Kansas City Star, March 12, 1989, 5D.
Brian Burnes, “Benton as Neosho Remembers Him,” Kansas City Star, April 2, 1989, 2I.
Robert Sanford, “The Benton Year: Celebrating the Centennial of a Great Missouri Artist,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch Magazine, April 9, 1989, 10.
Laura Rollins Hockaday, “Almost Like Old Times: Spaghetti and a Benton,” Kansas City Star, April 13, 1989, 6D.
David Zimmerman, “A New Brush with Benton’s Bold Realism,” USA Today, April 14, 1989, 2D.
“Thomas Hart Benton: An American Original,” Kansas City Star Magazine, advertising supplement, April 16, 1989, 20.
William Holland, “It’s a Century Worth Celebrating,” Kansas City Times, April 17, 1989, A5.
Verlyn Klinkenborg, “Thomas Hart Benton Came from Missouri—and He Showed ’Em,” Smithsonian 20 (April 1989), 99–101.
John Garrity, “Spit and Vinegar: At His Centennial, Tom Benton Still Riles the Critics,” Connoisseur 219 (April 1989), 130–31.
Robert Hughes, “Tarted Up till the Eye Cries Uncle,” Time, May 1, 1989, 80–81.
Peter Von Ziegesar, “Thomas Hart Benton,” New Art Examiner 17 (September 1989), 61.
Michael Brenson, “At Whitney, a Look Back at Thomas Hart Benton,” New York Times, November 17, 1989, C30.
“Thomas Hart Benton,” Nine 4 (November 1989), 18–19.
Erika Doss, “The Art of Cultural Politics: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism,” in Recasting America: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cold War, ed. Lary May (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 211.
Bob Priddy, Only the Rivers Are Peaceful: Thomas Hart Benton’s Missouri Mural (Independence, Mo.: Independence Press/Herald Publishing House, 1989), 143, 151–53.
John L. Ward, American Realist Painting, 1945–1980 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1989), 6–7.
Douglas Hurt and Mary K. Dains, eds., Thomas Hart Benton: Artist, Writer, Intellectual (Columbia: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1989), 43, 45, 97, 111, 127, 133, 160.
Kansas City Remembers: Thomas Hart Benton, 1889–1975, exh. cat. (Kansas City, Mo.: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, 1989), unpaginated.
Henry Adams, Thomas Hart Benton: An American Original (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1989), 284–93.
Thomas Hart Benton: An American Original (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1989), 13–14.
William Wilson, “Benton’s Epics from the Soil,” Los Angeles Times, April 29, 1990, 92.
“Thomas Hart Benton: The Mood and Character of America,” Art of California 3 (July 1990), 24, 27.
Henry Adams, “Thomas Hart Benton,” in International Dictionary of Art and Artists, ed. James Vinson (Chicago: St. James Press, 1990), 1:942–43.
Henry Adams, Thomas Hart Benton: Drawing from Life, exh. cat. (New York: Abbeville Press, 1990), 160, 177, 180–83.
The Society of Fellows Silver Anniversary (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1990), unpaginated.
Pete Szilagyi, American Statesman (Austin, Tex.), [1990], clipping, NAMA curatorial files.
Roger Ward, “Selected Acquisitions of European and American Paintings at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1986–1990,” Burlington Magazine 133 (February 1991), 157, 159.
Alan Wallach, “Regionalism Redux,” Art Quarterly 43 (June 1991), 267, 275.
Benton’s America: Works on Paper and Selected Paintings, exh. cat. (New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 1991), 59.
Erika Doss, Benton, Pollock, and the Politics of Modernism: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 253–54, 258, 281.
Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 5, 196–97.
Rudy Chiappini, ed., Thomas Hart Benton, exh. cat. (Lugano, Switzerland: Museo d’Arte Moderna, 1992), 102, 106–9, 165–66.
Alice Thorson, “The Nelson Celebrates Its 60th,” Kansas City Star, July 18, 1993, J5.
Dr. Ruth Westheimer, The Art of Arousal (New York: Abbeville Press, 1993), 55.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collections. 6th ed. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 56, 229, 248.
Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 1933–1993 (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 109.
Fred G. See, “Something Reflective: Technology and Visual Pleasure,” Journal of Popular Film and Television 22 (Winter 1995), 163–64, 170n5.
Ted Loos, “An All-American Show: The Midwest Offers a Millennium of Homegrown Art,” Art & Antiques 18 (May 1995), 110.
Nina Felshin, “Women’s Work: A Lineage, 1966–1994,” Art Journal 54 (Spring 1995), 82.
Sally Vallongo, “An Exciting Look at America,” Toledo (Ohio) Blade, October 8, 1995, 8.
Kathryn C. Johnson, ed., Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, exh. cat. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1995), 151.
Robert W. Butler, “Peeping Thomas,” Kansas City Star, February 27, 1996, E6.
Alice Thorson, “Nelson Exhibition Gives the People What They Want,” Kansas City Star, March 17, 1996, I13.
Alice Thorson, “Nelson Art Exhibition Spans 1,000 Years—And All of It Was ‘Made in America,’” Kansas City Star, March 24, 1996, I3.
Robert W. Butler, “An Unauthorized Benton Pops up in ‘Evita,’” Kansas City Star, December 29, 1996, J3.
Alice Thorson, “Life Imitates Art,” Kansas City Star, October 11, 1997, E1.
R. W. Apple Jr., “Pleasures in the Heartland: ‘About as Fur as They C’n Go!’” New York Times, July 17, 1998, 38.
James M. Dennis, Renegade Regionalists: The Modern Independence of Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 136, 139.
James Leggio and Barbara Burn, eds., On Modern American Art: Selected Essays by Robert Rosenblum (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999), 38–39.
Philip Dacey, The Deathbed Playboy: Poems by Philip Dacey (Cheney: Eastern Washington University Press, 1999), cover.
Barbara Jaffee, “The Abstraction Within: Diagrammatic Impulses in Twentieth Century American Art, Pedagogy, and Art History,” Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1999, 134, 257.
Thomas Hart Benton: Exhibition of Paintings, exh. cat. (New York: Owen Gallery, 2000), 27, 66.
“This Is a Famous Painting Called ‘Persephone,’” Kansas City Star Magazine, June 10, 2001, 20.
Susan Kerslake, Seasoning Fever (Erin, Ontario: Porcupine’s Quill, 2002), cover.
University Daily Kansan Jayplay (Lawrence, Kans.), November 6, 2003, cover, 2.
Marjorie B. Searle and Roland Netsky, Leaving for the Country: George Bellows at Woodstock (Rochester, N.Y.: Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, 2003), 49.
Scott Kerr and R. H. Dick, An American Art Colony: The Art and Artists of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, 1930–1940 (St. Louis: McCaughen & Burr Press, 2004), 172–73, 181.
Randall R. Griffey, “Bingham to Benton: The Midwest as Muse,” American Art Review 17 (April 2005), 96–98.
Leo G. Mazow, Shallow Creek: Thomas Hart Benton and American Waterways (University Park, PA: Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, 2007), 2–3.
Margaret C. Conrads, ed. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945 (Kansas City, Mo.: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 1:92–99, 2: 33–38.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 181.
Henry Adams, Tom and Jack: The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock (London: Bloomsbury, 2009), 206.
Tino Ballo, The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens, 1946–1973 (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2010), 54.
Leo G. Mazow, Thomas Hart Benton and the American Sound (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 7.
Justin Wolff, Thomas Hart Benton: A Life (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), 188, 264–66, 275, 287.
Austen Barron Bailly, eds., American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood (New York: DelMonico Books Prestel, 2015), 69, 119, 142–43, 152, 168, 200 (repro.).
