Thomas Hart Benton: Lessons from the Movies

"Jessie with Guitar" by Thomas Hart Benton

"The problem of how to live in New York, how to maintain myself there, was partially solved in the summer of 1914 by my friend Rex Ingram, who had abandoned his sculptural ambitions to become an associate director in the moving picture business. Rex procured employment for me to do research and draw up elevations for movie backgrounds and sets. As the movies of these days did not employ color, I made my set designs and backdrops in black and white. My conceptions were enlarged and sometimes modified by professional scene painters. Under Rex's sponsorship, moving picture work would continue for several years providing a basic, if sporadic, income.

Observing the scene painters, I became interested in 'distemper,' or glue painting, and began experiments with that medium. The quick drying of the glue solutions, with which their pigments were saturated, permitted rapid over-painting and precise brush drawing, both of which struck me as highly advantageous. From this time on, I would continue to experiment with distemper painting.

I also began a practice which was later to become habitual. This was to underpaint with distemper and overpaint with oil. The distemper, drying rapidly, permitted me to make up my mind about what I was going to do in a third of the time it took with oil and without the risk of muddied color. Later, egg-tempera would take the place of distemper, but the principles of such combinations of mediums, the use of which was commence here, are the same. Later it would lead to the egg-tempera techniques which I used for my murals of the thirties."

To be continued 

(Excerpts from "An American in Art: A Professional and Technical Autobiography" by Thomas Hart Benton.)