Investigation
Artist
Thomas Hart Benton
(American, 1889 - 1975)
Date1937
MediumLithograph on paper
DimensionsOverall: 9 3/8 × 12 5/8 inches (23.81 × 32.08 cm)
Credit LineGift of Robert M. White II in honor of his father, L. Mitchell White
Object numberF97-2/15
Signedplate, lower right, pencil lower right margin
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionThree men in a boat pull up to a half-submerged grocery store. In the background to the left are partially submerged trees and another building.Gallery Label"Description can give no sense of the dread realities of flood misery—the cold mud, the lost goods, the homeless animals, the dreary standing around of destitute people." —Thomas Hart Benton
Investigation focuses on those “dread realities” by showing three men in a rowboat inspecting a ruined grocery store in southeastern Missouri. These men were victims of the 1937 flooding of the Mississippi and the Ohio. Benton chronicled this tragedy for The Kansas City Star and St. Louis Post-Dispatch in drawings.
Copyright© Thomas Hart Benton and Rita P. Benton Testamentary Trusts / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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