Highlights from the Wisconsin Union Art Collection Catalog
<<Previous - Thumbnails - Next>>

Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975)
Frisky Day, 1939
lithograph

Famed as a lithographer, painter, muralist, and outspoken writer, Thomas Benton was born in Neosho, on the edge of the Missouri Ozarks. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago but his true education began in 1908 when he traveled to Paris’ Quartier Latin, remaining there for four years. In 1920 Benton abandoned the avant-garde art of Paris and returned to his American roots by painting genre scenes. He developed a type of social realism in praising the rural Midwest and South and criticizing urbanity and industrialization.
From 1926 to 1934, Benton taught at the Arts Students League in New York where one of his students was Jackson Pollock (1912-1956). Benton was well-known as an outspoken and controversial figure in the art world throughout his life. He published an autobiography, An Artist in America in 1937. Frisky Day was made in 1939 and purchased the same year through the Wisconsin Union Fund.

C.G.

Art Committee Home


Problems? Contact the Web Master. Last revised 20 Jan 04