“American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood,” a sprawling and revelatory exhibition of works by that famous Missouri artist, which opened at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art on Saturday, is a marriage made in art lovers’ heaven.
“He was an artist who was deeply engaged in trying to find ways to tell America’s stories,” said lead curator Austen Barron Bailly, the George Putnam curator of American Art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., one of the two museums partnering with the Carter to create this exhibition (Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is the third).
“When he was embarking on his career, movies were becoming the dominant form of storytelling in America,” said Bailly.
With that concept in mind, Bailly and her team, including Carter assistant curator Maggie Adler, put together an exhibition featuring about 100 of Benton’s works, among them 30 paintings and murals, numerous drawings and lithographs, and several posters and book illustrations.
They also collected clips of films from Benton’s era that are seen on video screens scattered throughout the exhibition to establish context. This is the collection’s third of four stops.
Benton’s unique style, which is so thoroughly surveyed in this exhibition, seems a perfect match for Hollywood. His works are truly “motion pictures” captured in frames.
Benton’s limber, curving figures roll and undulate across his canvases, suggesting movement despite being trapped in a static, two-dimensional space. His subjects feel as free of the rigid tyranny of bones as the bits of light and shadow we call “movie stars” are free of the constraints of being human.
His use of captivating colors (his distinctive yellows, oranges and blues are particularly interesting) can rival any Technicolor film effort. And, perhaps most significantly, he knew how to tell a story with a pen or brush.
“Benton developed a modern cinematic painting style to communicate epic narratives as memorably as the movies of his day,” Bailly said. “He wanted to capture the feel of motion pictures on canvas, the illusion of 3-D space, rhythmic motion and the glow of projected light.”
That final comment about light in Benton’s works was reinforced for Adler when it came time for the exhibition’s pictures to be hung at the Carter.
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