Thomas Hart Benton, Persephone, 1938-1939
Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889 - 1975)
Persephone, 1938-1939
Tempera with oil glazes on canvas, mounted on panel, 72 1/8 x 56 1/16 inches (183.2 x 142.4 cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the Yellow Freight System Foundation, Mrs. Herbert O. Peet, Richard J. Stern, the Doris Jones Stein Foundation, the Jacob L. and Ella C. Loose Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Levin, and Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Rich, F86-57
As a small child, I admired Thomas Hart Benton’s Persephone in one of the first coffee-table art books: Thomas Craven’s A Treasury of Art Masterpieces, which covered the history of painting from Giotto to Picasso. Of course, it never occurred to me that I would someday play a role in acquiring it for a museum. The painting stirred up a good deal of controversy when it was made because of the provocative way it moved a nude like that of the old masters into a modern setting. It’s arguably the greatest of Benton’s easel paintings.
During his lifetime, Benton repeatedly offered the painting to the Nelson-Atkins museum for modest sums but was turned down. We paid what at the time seemed a truly staggering amount for it, though it proved only a fraction of what the painting would sell for today. Marc Wilson, the museum’s director, showed exceptional vision in overcoming the trustee’s residual reluctance to take Benton seriously as an artist, and in recognizing that Persephone would provide a splendid centerpiece for the museum’s impressive collection of Benton’s work.
When we acquired the painting it was in a flimsy traveling frame, but we eventually located the original, a massive affair, handcrafted by Benton’s wife and students from a strip of outdoor billboard molding.
Bibliography
Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, 1991, p. 196.
Henry Adams, Thomas Hart Benton: An American Original, April l989, published by Alfred Knopf, Inc., in association with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston, p. 284-293.
Henry Adams, A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions l977-l987, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, [exhibition catalog], October l987.