GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The New Testament parable of the Prodigal Son receives an updated retelling in this Depression-era painting by Thomas Hart Benton. In the biblical story, a headstrong young man goes out into the world to seek his fortune and falls into vice. When he returns home broken and battered, he is welcomed by his father. The story has resonated for centuries as an example of the limitless possibilities of forgiveness.
In this painting exploring a dust-bowl version of the biblical story, the young man's return comes too late. The homestead is in ruins, the chimney stands aslant like a tombstone over a dilapidated grave, and the cow is but a skeleton. In addition, the clouds take on the shapes of howling dogs. This ironic twist to the biblical story underscores both the grim reality of conditions in the Midwest during the 1930s and 1940s and the artist's personal experiences with events that were beyond any man's power to control.
Adapted from
- Sue Canterbury, DMA label text, 2013
- William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label text, 2005
NOTES
c. 1939-41
Object File reviewed
Extensive bibliography--did not have time to list here
Eleanor Jones Harvey changed date from 1943 to c. 1939-41 in 1993
See exhibition photos (to pull wall text) from Harvey's 1997 exhibition- 11558
Exhibitions (copied from Object Summary):
Thomas Hart Benton, New Britain Museum of American Art, 1954 to 1954
Denison Interstate Fine Arts Society 1958, Denison Interstate Fine Arts Society, 10/1958 ti 10/1958
Inaugural Exhibition (Oklahoma City 1958-1959), Oklahoma Art Center, 12/05/1958 to 1/31/1959
American Landscape Painter, 1800-1960, Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, 03/03/1961 to 04/05/1961
Fifty Years of American Art Since the Armory Show, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 04/13/1966 to 04/30/1966
Seventy-Five Years of Art in Dallas: The History of the Dallas Art Association and the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 01/25/1978 to 03/12/1978
Great American Story-Tellers, Oklahoma Art Center, 11/09/1979 to 01/13/1980
American Realism, 1920-1940, Neue Gesellschaft fur bildende Kunst e.V. Arts Association of Hamburg, 01/11/1981 to 02/15/1981
Featured Exhibit (Parkersburg 1993) Parkersburg Art Center, 05/02/1993 to 05/31/1993
After Many Springs: Regionalism, Modernism, and the MIdwest, Des Moines Art Center, 01/23/2009 to 05/17/2009
Related Object:
1992.515 Thomas Hart Benton, Prodigal Son
----------------
The New Testament parable of the Prodigal Son receives an updated retelling in this Depression-era painting by Thomas Hart Benton. In the biblical story, a headstrong young man goes out into the world to seek his fortune and falls into vice. When he returns home broken and battered, he is welcomed by his father. As an example of the limitless possibilities of forgiveness, the story has resonated for centuries. Like the Prodigal Son, Benton returned from New York to his native Missouri to teach art; however, unlike his subject, Benton's homecoming was not as happy, as suggested in the bleak landscape and ominous atmosphere of this painting.
Public Notes
------------------
Thomas Hart Benton's talents as an artist were matched by his ability to insult or outrage his audience. Already a successful artist in New York in the 1930s, he was censored by both his eastern and midwestern audience for his decision to turn away from abstraction and paint rural midwestern life. Stubborn in his belief that he was respecting his home region fairly, Benton was stung by the additional criticism that his portrayals were demeaning.
A turning point in Benton's career was his acceptance of a teaching position in the Kansas City Art Institute in 1935. The homecoming was stormy as Benton continued to make inflammatory comments about his critics, leading to his dismissal in May 11941. In New York that same year, he exhibited The Prodigal Son, a painting based on a lithograph two years earlier. In both the print and this painting Benton explores a dustbowl version of the biblical story, in which the young man's return comes too late. Between the print of 1939 and the painting of 1941, Benton had had his own experience with bittersweet homecomings, and in the painting, the clouds take on the shapes of howling dogs. This ironic and self-referential twist to the biblical story underscores both the grim conditions in the Midwest during the 1930s and 1940s and the artist's personal experiences with events that were beyond any man's power to control.
Label found in Dallas Nine Folder in the Educaiton files
------
Gail Davitt, biographical essays, education files, 1986-1987.
Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri in 1889. From 1896 to 1904 he studied art at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. In 1906, he worked as a cartoonist in Joplin, Mo., and in 1907 he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1908-1911 he lived in Paris, studying at the Académie Julian. In 1912 he returned to the U.S. and settled in New York City. During the first World War, Benton served in the U. S. Navy as an architectural draftsman. In 1926 he began teaching at the Art Students League. From this point until the time he left New York in 1935, Benton had many mural commissions. On the basis of a mural he did for the Missouri State Capital, he was invited to teach
painting and drawing classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. He settled permanently in Kansas City. In the late 1940s, Benton began painting scenes of the far west.
_____________
Benton was the leading regionalist artist of America in the 1930s. Responding to ideas of American folk ways, as well as to the grim facts of life in the Depression. Benton captured life in the Middle West, in a series of paintings and frescoes (many done for the Works Progress Administration). The swirling rhythms of Prodigal Son add poignancy to this ballad of loss and decay; they also remind one that Benton taught Jackson Pollock.
Bromberg, Description of Selected Works from the Collection, education files 1987
In the biblical story of the prodigal son, a headstrong young man goes out into the world to seek his fortune and falls into vice. When he returns home, broken and battered, his father generously welcomes him. As a parable of forgiveness, the story has resonated for millennia. Like the prodigal son, Thomas Hart Benton returned from New York to his native Missouri to teach at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1935. His homecoming was bittersweet, as the bleak landscape and ominous atmosphere of this painting suggest. Benton’s sometimes caustic attacks on his critics led to his dismissal from his teaching position in May 1941. Benton first treated this allegorical composition in a lithograph in 1939. He returned to the them in this oil and tempera panel, which he exhibited in New York in 1941.
Bonnie Pitman, ed., Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 272.
Email from Sue: purchased from the Associated American Artists in February 1945, it's possible to assume that they had it straight from the artist----Did not include in provenance because could not verify
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Depicted location: Midwest (United States): TGN: 4007191
Place of origin: Kansas City (Missouri/United States): 7013820
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
From 1945: Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Art Association Purchase Fund, purchased from the Associated American Artists, Inc., New York
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
- Parable of the Prodigal Son~Learn more about the parable of the Prodigal Son and view a 16th century painting depicting this story at Museo del Prado.
- Thomas Hart Benton, YouTube~Watch this 1947 video of Thomas Hart Benton creating a mural for a department store in St. Louis, Missouri.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
TEACHING IDEAS
RULES
Apply to objects where number equals 1945.1
Category
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General Description
The New Testament parable of the Prodigal Son receives an updated retelling in this Depression-era painting by Thomas Hart Benton. In the biblical story, a headstrong young man goes out into the world to seek his fortune and falls into vice. When he returns home broken and battered, he is welcomed by his father. The story has resonated for centuries as an example of the limitless possibilities of forgiveness.
In this painting exploring a dust-bowl version of the biblical story, the young man's return comes too late. The homestead is in ruins, the chimney stands aslant like a tombstone over a dilapidated grave, and the cow is but a skeleton. In addition, the clouds take on the shapes of howling dogs. This ironic twist to the biblical story underscores both the grim reality of conditions in the Midwest during the 1930s and 1940s and the artist's personal experiences with events that were beyond any man's power to control.
Adapted from
- Sue Canterbury, DMA label text, 2013
- William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label text, 2005
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- Parable of the Prodigal Son~Learn more about the parable of the Prodigal Son and view a 16th century painting depicting this story at Museo del Prado.
- Thomas Hart Benton, YouTube~Watch this 1947 video of Thomas Hart Benton creating a mural for a department store in St. Louis, Missouri.
Notes
c. 1939-41
Object File reviewed
Extensive bibliography--did not have time to list here
Eleanor Jones Harvey changed date from 1943 to c. 1939-41 in 1993
See exhibition photos (to pull wall text) from Harvey's 1997 exhibition- 11558
Exhibitions (copied from Object Summary):
Thomas Hart Benton, New Britain Museum of American Art, 1954 to 1954
Denison Interstate Fine Arts Society 1958, Denison Interstate Fine Arts Society, 10/1958 ti 10/1958
Inaugural Exhibition (Oklahoma City 1958-1959), Oklahoma Art Center, 12/05/1958 to 1/31/1959
American Landscape Painter, 1800-1960, Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, 03/03/1961 to 04/05/1961
Fifty Years of American Art Since the Armory Show, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 04/13/1966 to 04/30/1966
Seventy-Five Years of Art in Dallas: The History of the Dallas Art Association and the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 01/25/1978 to 03/12/1978
Great American Story-Tellers, Oklahoma Art Center, 11/09/1979 to 01/13/1980
American Realism, 1920-1940, Neue Gesellschaft fur bildende Kunst e.V. Arts Association of Hamburg, 01/11/1981 to 02/15/1981
Featured Exhibit (Parkersburg 1993) Parkersburg Art Center, 05/02/1993 to 05/31/1993
After Many Springs: Regionalism, Modernism, and the MIdwest, Des Moines Art Center, 01/23/2009 to 05/17/2009
Related Object:
1992.515 Thomas Hart Benton, Prodigal Son
----------------
The New Testament parable of the Prodigal Son receives an updated retelling in this Depression-era painting by Thomas Hart Benton. In the biblical story, a headstrong young man goes out into the world to seek his fortune and falls into vice. When he returns home broken and battered, he is welcomed by his father. As an example of the limitless possibilities of forgiveness, the story has resonated for centuries. Like the Prodigal Son, Benton returned from New York to his native Missouri to teach art; however, unlike his subject, Benton's homecoming was not as happy, as suggested in the bleak landscape and ominous atmosphere of this painting.
Public Notes
------------------
Thomas Hart Benton's talents as an artist were matched by his ability to insult or outrage his audience. Already a successful artist in New York in the 1930s, he was censored by both his eastern and midwestern audience for his decision to turn away from abstraction and paint rural midwestern life. Stubborn in his belief that he was respecting his home region fairly, Benton was stung by the additional criticism that his portrayals were demeaning.
A turning point in Benton's career was his acceptance of a teaching position in the Kansas City Art Institute in 1935. The homecoming was stormy as Benton continued to make inflammatory comments about his critics, leading to his dismissal in May 11941. In New York that same year, he exhibited The Prodigal Son, a painting based on a lithograph two years earlier. In both the print and this painting Benton explores a dustbowl version of the biblical story, in which the young man's return comes too late. Between the print of 1939 and the painting of 1941, Benton had had his own experience with bittersweet homecomings, and in the painting, the clouds take on the shapes of howling dogs. This ironic and self-referential twist to the biblical story underscores both the grim conditions in the Midwest during the 1930s and 1940s and the artist's personal experiences with events that were beyond any man's power to control.
Label found in Dallas Nine Folder in the Educaiton files
------
Gail Davitt, biographical essays, education files, 1986-1987.
Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri in 1889. From 1896 to 1904 he studied art at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. In 1906, he worked as a cartoonist in Joplin, Mo., and in 1907 he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1908-1911 he lived in Paris, studying at the Académie Julian. In 1912 he returned to the U.S. and settled in New York City. During the first World War, Benton served in the U. S. Navy as an architectural draftsman. In 1926 he began teaching at the Art Students League. From this point until the time he left New York in 1935, Benton had many mural commissions. On the basis of a mural he did for the Missouri State Capital, he was invited to teach
painting and drawing classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. He settled permanently in Kansas City. In the late 1940s, Benton began painting scenes of the far west.
_____________
Benton was the leading regionalist artist of America in the 1930s. Responding to ideas of American folk ways, as well as to the grim facts of life in the Depression. Benton captured life in the Middle West, in a series of paintings and frescoes (many done for the Works Progress Administration). The swirling rhythms of Prodigal Son add poignancy to this ballad of loss and decay; they also remind one that Benton taught Jackson Pollock.
Bromberg, Description of Selected Works from the Collection, education files 1987
In the biblical story of the prodigal son, a headstrong young man goes out into the world to seek his fortune and falls into vice. When he returns home, broken and battered, his father generously welcomes him. As a parable of forgiveness, the story has resonated for millennia. Like the prodigal son, Thomas Hart Benton returned from New York to his native Missouri to teach at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1935. His homecoming was bittersweet, as the bleak landscape and ominous atmosphere of this painting suggest. Benton’s sometimes caustic attacks on his critics led to his dismissal from his teaching position in May 1941. Benton first treated this allegorical composition in a lithograph in 1939. He returned to the them in this oil and tempera panel, which he exhibited in New York in 1941.
Bonnie Pitman, ed., Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 272.
Email from Sue: purchased from the Associated American Artists in February 1945, it's possible to assume that they had it straight from the artist----Did not include in provenance because could not verify
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Depicted location: Midwest (United States): TGN: 4007191
Place of origin: Kansas City (Missouri/United States): 7013820
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
From 1945: Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Art Association Purchase Fund, purchased from the Associated American Artists, Inc., New York
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