Benton, Thomas Hart. Group of (9) autograph letters signed ("Tom"), 16 pages, 29 April 1941 to 17 April 1964, with some undate...

Click the image to load the highest resolution version.

Sold on May 30, 2013 for:

Not Sold

Get one of these:

Share this lot

Track Item Printable Auction Results

Sell One of These

Description

Auction Info

Guides & Info

Description

Benton, Thomas Hart. Group of (9) autograph letters signed ("Tom"), 16 pages, 29 April 1941 to 17 April 1964, with some undated. Benton, Thomas Hart. Group of (9) autograph letters signed ("Tom"), 16 pages, 29 April 1941 to 17 April 1964, with some undated. A personal collection of letters written in Hart's sarcastic parlance discussing art criticism and updates on private matters. In a letter to the Director of the Kansas City Art Institute, dated 29 April 1941, Benton writes in part: I can't be caught with my pants down. If you're bumping me out of the Institute I've got to make up by lecture engagements for what I lose when my salary ... is discontinued .... I want a prompt decision from your board. ... I demand it ... In a typed statement, perhaps intended for the press, Benton writes in part: This business doesn't come as a surprise to me .... There's always been a bunch of respectable brothers and sisters in the Kansas City Art Institute who got sick every time I laughed. And I laugh a lot. As I leave, I can laugh once more - at the failure of the cheap little trick they pulled up there when they asked ... Martelly to take my place .... When I first came out here, there were too many cowtown aesthetes ... using art to temper the smell of the stockyards on papa's boots and too many would-be Ziegfield boys, male ballet dancers, interior decorators, and played-out imitations of the Klondike. And there were ... too many goony women who thought Art was something that occurred at tea parties. And there were too many fat men pussyfooting around whose brains were fatter than their bellies .... But I wanted to live in Missouri .... I thought Art needed to remember a little the smell of the stockyards .... Maybe I can get all these phoneys out of the way and take the stigma off the art business in this town .... I painted a mural that got everybody ... talking about Art ... a living American art that said things American people understood. Then I built up a strong painting school ... in spite of a succession of dimwit presidents who looked on me as a wild radical. ... For myself, I made money ... out of the subject matter I found in Missouri land and people which stirred my emotions and made me productive.... I didn't pay much attention to the...tea party phoneys. After they failed to get rid of me ... I figured enough Missouri humor had come to Kansas City .... I figured wrong. They sneaked up on me and now I'm out of a job.... Without me the Kansas City Art Institute will drop back to the kind of third rate joint it was before I came. It'll be just a place where girls hang around between high school and marriage .... Of course, the tea parties will start again .... Their idea of a living Art [is] a Glee Club boy in a frock coat sweetening up display portraits of vanitous women while he sips a cup of tea .... But in spite of this degradation ... Art will not go back on the bum in Kansas City. I'm staying here. And when talented young men and women come here and want to work seriously, I'll fix things up ... so they can work in an atmosphere of artistic integrity. My services will be free to them .... They won't have to sweep any more floors or wear any more flunkey uniforms for the love of Art. An autograph letter accompanies this letter to the art critic Thomas Craven, in which Benton discusses his problems with the institute further. In another undated letter, Benton discusses his break with the Associated American Artist gallery in New York City because "Reeves Lewenthal's projects have become adjunctive to the advertising business and are taking on all its corruptive character." Lewenthal began the A.A.A. to produce cheap lithograph reproductions of famous artwork for the consumption of the middle class. The present collection of letters to art critic Thomas Craven clearly articulates Benton's passion for art, but also allows the public to see inside his personal life. He discusses a number of his paintings, his plans for a European trip and his reaction to the death of the American painter Rolf Armstrong.