Thomas Hart Benton – 1889-1975

Missouri-born Benton was the son of a famous Congressman. He worked as a newspaper cartoonist as a young man, then studied serious art in Europe and at the Art Institute of Chicago. Turning his back on the prevailing Modernist styles, he traveled through the rural South and Midwest, capturing people and landscapes and emerging as the foremost of the Regionalists, who transformed the humble American scene into memorable art.