Thomas Hart Benton: American Regionalism

"The Kentuckian" by Thomas Hart Benton

"Quite a number of artists in the late twenties were engaged in looking at the American scene. Edward Hopper and others had turned away from European influences and were seeking their artistic salvation in home experience. An Americanist movement, though not clearly defined, was in the air. 

In the early thirties American Regionalism was held up to the national attention in the persons of Grant Wood, John Curry, and myself. What distinguished us was the desire to redirect what we had found in the art of Europe toward an art specifically representative of America. It was only later that we began seeing one another and cementing by personal contact our publicly advertised bonds. With Curry established for his long stay as artist in residence at the University of Wisconsin, with Wood at the University of Iowa, and with myself established in Kansas City, we found weekend visits fairly easy to make. 

In the course of our association and for all our differences of view and temperament, Wood, Curry and I began influencing one another. It was after studying Wood's pictures that I became interested in textural detail. Studying Curry, I tried to get closer to actual visual appearances and to everyday happenings. Both Wood and Curry began taking over from my work our increased concern with three-dimensional geometric structure. Some of Wood's late lithographs were almost sculptural. Let your American environment, we concluded, be your source of inspiration.

When the world situation began in 1938 and 1939 to inject itself into American politics, and Americans of all classes and of all factions began to realize that our very survival as a nation was being menaced by what was occurring in Europe, American particularisms were pushed into the background and subordinated to the international problem. Regionalism declined in popular interest and lost its grip on the minds of young artists. Shortly after our entrance into the War, what was left of it was turned to a swift and superficial representation of combat and production scenes, to a business of sensational reporting for the popular magazines. There it had its grass-roots substance knocked out."

To be continued

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