Description:

Benton Thomas
Single page ALS on front and verso, 7.25" x 11". Dated "Nov 14 - '67", and written on his hand-penned letterhead of "Thomas H Benton, 3616 Belleview Ave, Kansas City, Mo. 64111." Expected folds with light uneven toning, else near fine. Accompanied by the mailing envelope, 7.5" x 4", near fine with toning to the verso.

 

A phenomenal letter showing the classic gritty side of Thomas Hart Benton, discussing one of his very early paintings owned by "Billy Rose". Benton, who was 5' 3" and pugnacious, dissed museums, and sometimes said he preferred to hang his work in bars, clubs and saloons. He boxed (a ''bearcat with his fists,'' one friend said about him), swam, played the harmonica, roamed the United States with a knapsack, and set an example for alcohol consumption that generations of American male artists have tried to equal.


He was a showman and a public figure. His murals and his consistent artistic challenges to decorum made people who did not normally care about art argue about it and him. He liked popular culture and Hollywood, made clipped, rolling cinematic paintings, and became part of the lore of his native Midwest. He was the prototype of the plain-talking, hard-drinking, America-loving, Europe-hating, anti-effete, anti-intellectual artist that staked claim to American art immediately after World War II.

 

Benton pens a letter to Leonard Lyons of The New York Post, commenting on the present value of one of his early paintings which he sold to Billy Rose in the 1930s for "3,000" called ''Persephone,'' which to the artist's delight proudly hung in Billy Rose's Horseshoe Bar in New York, the perfect environment, according to Benton. Yet, in this letter dated 1967, he notes with awe "Billy Rose's painting did come up for auction at Parke-Bernets - early last spring if I remember correctly. Billy as you know paid $3000 for it in 1939 or 40. At the auction it was bid in for $17,000.00 and shortly thereafter re-sold for $35,000.00". Offering his condolences, he continues with "So I should have encouraged you to buy some "Benton's at 1930 prices.

 

A number of paintings I made in the thirties and early forties have come up in the New York market in the last year or so but the value accruals have put them in the same rarified price area as the Billy Rose painting.

 

Maybe this is happening because people think I'm near to turning up my toes. But I'll fool them."

 

Thomas was somewhat forced out of the art scene in New York due to  generally refusing to conform to the leftist politics of the community, and having a style that had been outmoded by modernism. "Persephone" appears to have been painted as almost a reaction to this period of his life. "Persephone" was a huge painting with significant undercurrents depicting a nude showgirl cast in the role of a classical goddess with symbolism in Greek Mythology. An image of the painting is shown with this listing for reference.

 

Benton continues his light hearted banter about how finally "The Missouri University Press", and "The Texas University Press" are finally "making me respectable". If he only knew that decades later his art would be on display as four distinct murals covering the four walls of an entire room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and that his art has achieved soaring prices, being highly coveted today.

 

An extraordinary letter providing an inside look by this master, one which shows his astonishment in watching his painting taking an important place in the art world.  Today, along with Grant Wood and John Seuart Curry, Benton was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. The fluid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the United States.


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