Crapshooters

Artist Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889 - 1975)

Dateca. 1928

MediumTempera on pressboard

DimensionsUnframed: 48 1/8 × 36 1/8 inches (122.24 × 91.76 cm)
Framed: 53 5/8 × 41 5/8 inches (136.21 × 105.73 cm)

Credit LineBequest of the artist

Object numberF75-21/14

SignedSigned lower right: Benton

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

American Art

Terms

Exhibition History

130th Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, January 27–March 3, 1935, no. 193.

Contemporary Americans, University Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, February 1–23, 1936, unnumbered.

Loan Exhibition of Drawings and Paintings by Thomas Hart Benton, Lakeside Press Galleries, Chicago, October 1–November 30, 1937, no. 31.

Thomas Hart Benton: A Giant in American Art, University Art Gallery, University of Arizona, Tucson, October 15, 1962–September 1, 1963 (traveled), no. 14.

Thomas Hart Benton: A Retrospective of His Early Years, 1907–1929, Rutgers University Art Gallery, Brunswick, N.J., November 19–December 30, 1972, no. 65.

Thomas Hart Benton: An Artist’s Selection, 1908–1974, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, MO, October 12, 1974–January 7, 1975 (traveled), no. 17.

Thomas Hart Benton: Works on Paper, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, May 12, 1990–January 6, 1991 (traveled), unnumbered.

Bingham to Benton: The Midwest as Muse, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 5–July 31, 2005, no cat.

Gallery Label

Crapshooters is based on sketches Benton made during a lengthy trip in 1928 along the Mississippi River, during which he depicted various facets of southern life. Following his abiding interest in picturing the common people of America, he here drew the cargo crew appearing on the deck of the steamboat Tennessee Belle at Red River Landing, Louisiana. The painting features hallmarks of Benton's emerging signature style, including undulating, elongated shapes, a quick recession into space and smoothly modeled, three-dimensional forms. It also displays his adoption of egg tempera, a strong, fast-drying medium beloved by European Old Masters that gained many new American converts in the early 20th century.

The crapshooter figures also appear in the 1932 mural Benton painted for the Whitney Museum in New York City.

Provenance

Thomas Hart Benton;

His gift to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1975.

Published References

Catalogue of the 130th Annual Exhibition, exh. cat. (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1935), 19.

Contemporary Americans, exh. cat. (Minneapolis: University Gallery, University of Minnesota, 1936), 2.

Catalogue of a Loan Exhibition of Drawings and Paintings by Thomas Hart Benton, with an Evaluation of the Artist and His Work, exh. cat. (Chicago: Lakeside Press Galleries, 1937), 16.

“Important Works of Thomas Benton,” Demcourier 13 (February 1943), 14 (as 1932).

Thomas Hart Benton: A Giant in American Art, exh. cat. (Tucson: University Art Gallery, University of Arizona, 1962), unpaginated (as 1932).

Robert K. Sanford, “Benton Never Fell Off His Horse,” Kansas City Star, July 28, 1963, 9E.

Phillip Dennis Cate, Thomas Hart Benton: A Retrospective of His Early Years, 1907–1929, exh. cat. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Art Gallery, 1972), unpaginated.

Matthew Baigell, Thomas Hart Benton (New York: Henry N. Abrams, 1974), 9, 92.

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.

Kathleen Patterson, “Nelson Gallery in Benton Will,” Kansas City Times, February 26, 1975, 1B.

“Paintings from the Thomas Hart Benton Bequest,” Gallery Events (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts), March 1976, unpaginated.

Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 191.

Arthur Flowers and Anthony Curtis, The Art of Gambling through the Ages (Las Vegas: Huntington Press, 2000), 44–45.

Randall R. Griffey, “Bingham to Benton: The Midwest as Muse,” American Art Review 17 (April 2005), 96.

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: 74–77, 2: 27

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