Continental School (20th century) VENETIAN CANAL SCENE oil on panel, framed signed: lower left, illegibly H12in W16in 460 -A Benton, Thomas Hart American, MO (1899-1975) FLOOD lithograph signed: in pencil, lower right, Benton image size: H9in W12in *Artist biography: "Benton fits the familiar mold of Jack London, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway - the roughneck artist, the temperamental genius disguised as a Joe. But beneath the denim and swagger, there lurks something else: a soul, Benton said, "impregnated with a deep sense of value of life, of the beauty of the basic human emotions and the sadness of the drama of human striving.in - Verlyn Klinkenborg, p. 100, Smithsonian, April 1989 Named after his great-grandfather, a prominent U. S. Senator, Thomas Hart Benton emerged from a political background with love for America and its back roads. As the son of a popular Missouri congressman, Benton traveled extensively with his father on the campaign trail. In 1907, he left Missouri to study at the Art Institute in Chicago and the Academie Julian in Paris. Returning to the United States in 1911, Benton became an instructor at the Art Students' League in New York City. Traveling extensively throughout the country, Benton was exposed to a panorama of American experience, along with john Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, he became associated with Regionalism, an artistic movement best known for its emphasis on agrarian cultural ideals. The raw expressionistic and individualistic tone of his work reflected his decision to adopt American subjects and themes in order to create a truly American art that speaks to its people, its history and its culture. By the time of his death in 1975, Benton authored a body of work that remains as perhaps the most sweeping chronicle of American culture in the 20th century.