Thomas Hart Benton’s depiction of American life were both admired and reviled.  He was an artist whose images express his deepest feelings about love, family, and religion.  There were those that described him as a brilliant artist, while at the same time labeling him as fascist, communist, racist, bigot.

He was a man of complex character with a volatile personality, but there was little doubt to his commitment to art.  In the mid-twenties he ventured onto a series of sketching expeditions, back-to-the-roots rambles  that led him to his true subjects, the life of people, and the history of the American heartland.

His life was stormy and filled with drama, often of Benton’s  on making.  But he remained true to his vision and left as his legacy a moving interpretation of the world he lived in.

He amassed a great store of images which he later put to use in the climactic works of his career, the great mural cycles.  In his murals he portrayed the Holy Rollers healing a child, weather beaten cowboys, field hands weighing cotton, boom towns, wildcatters, Indians. sharecroppers, politicos, steelworkers, dance hall girls…all the different characters that made up American folklore, mythology, and history.