Still Life
Artist
Thomas Hart Benton
(American, 1889 - 1975)
Date1936
MediumOil and tempera on canvas mounted on wood panel
DimensionsFramed: 40 1/4 x 24 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches (102.24 x 62.23 x 6.35 cm)
Credit LineGift of Jean Berkley Baum from the Rheta Sosland Collection
Object number2010.26
SignedSigned in brown oil paint, lower right: Benton
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionThis vivid floral still life, painted in oil on canvas and mounted to panel, is strongly vertical in orientation. A turquoise vase at the center of the composition is positioned atop a swirl of pink fabric draped over a wooden block. The vase holds a single stalk of red gladiolas with a few yet unopened buds; two small, yellow, mum-type flowers; a spray of fern-like foliage; and a trailing vine from which sprouts large, grape-like leaves. A piece of fruit, possibly a peach (or maybe a tomato), is reflected in the body of the vase. A pair of limes rest on the pink fabric near the peach (or tomato). A gnarled, broken branch sits on the fabric to the right of the vase, while a rock or two (or perhaps another piece of wood or burl) sits behind it. A cascade of light blue drapery appears to hang from what may be a wooden door or crate behind and to the right of the still life arrangement and emphasizes the verticality of the composition. An expanse of light green wall occupies the left side of the painting and serves as a foil for the red gladiolas.Gallery LabelThomas Hart Benton's vivid and vibrant Still Life is anything but still. It reflects the artist's love of rhythmic, undulating forms as well as an unstable, tipped-up perspective and intense, almost vibrating color choices. These striking elements are characteristics of the artist's signature style from this important decade in his career.
Still Life likely features flowers from Benton's wife's garden mixed with foliage he plucked from a field or roadside. Such vegetation often figures prominently in Benton's celebrated Regionalist paintings. The grape-type leaves that cascade from the vase, for example, prefigure the lush, overdeveloped wines found in Persephone. Still Life also reveals Benton's interest in 17th-century Flemish paintings of meticulously rendered horticultural arrangements.
Still Life likely features flowers from Benton's wife's garden mixed with foliage he plucked from a field or roadside. Such vegetation often figures prominently in Benton's celebrated Regionalist paintings. The grape-type leaves that cascade from the vase, for example, prefigure the lush, overdeveloped wines found in Persephone. Still Life also reveals Benton's interest in 17th-century Flemish paintings of meticulously rendered horticultural arrangements.
Thomas Hart Benton;
To Louis and Rheta Sosland, Shawnee Mission, KS, mid-late 1930s;
To Jean Berkley Baum, Charlottesville, VA, after 1974;
To The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, April 2010.
Matthew Baigell, Thomas Hart Benton (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1974), 156.
Copyright© Thomas Hart Benton and Rita P. Benton Testamentary Trusts/UMB Bank Trustee/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
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