Description:

Benton Thomas

Thomas Hart Benton Signed Letter, Preparing for a Lewis and Clark Adventure

 

Single page autographed letter signed, 7.25" x 10.5,"on personal letterhead of Thomas Hart Benton, 3616 Belleview, Kansas City, MO. Penned on recto and verso. Dated "March 15 - 65" and signed by him as "Tom." Fine condition. Accompanied by the postmarked mailing envelope, address in Benton's hand. Neatly opened along top edge, else near fine.

 

A phenomenal association letter, showing Benton's passion for the Midwest. Benton is best known for his artistic portrayal depicting everyday people and their lives in the context of the history of America. He's been called an "anthropologist of American life" who sought to record the beautiful, the ugly, and the mundane. His letter written to his friend, and New York Post editor, Leonard Lyons, demonstrates Benton's incredible enthusiasm for the Midwest and his upcoming trip to replicate a piece of the Lewis and Clark voyage. He effuses about his summer plans in which he

 " … returns to the midwest for an expedition up to the headwaters of the Missouri River. With a companion interested in our western history I am going to follow up the trail of Lewis and Clark. The army of engineers are furnishing transportation, guides etc. After that trip, which would terminate the end of July, in Southwest Montana, I shall go to the headwaters of Green River in Wyoming for a look at some of the haunts of the old time fur traders and trappers…"

 

Benton who was 5' 3" and pugnacious, earthy and unpretentious was known to box (like a ''bearcat with his fists,'' one friend said about him), swim, play the harmonica, and roam 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 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.

 

A fantastic period letter from this great master artist who was lucky enough to have seen recognition of his art during his lifetime.

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