Thomas Hart Benton, American (1889–1975). Utah Highlands, 1954. Gouache on paper mounted to board, 21 x 28 inches (53.3 x 71.1 cm). Lent by the Shawnee Mission School District, Shawnee Mission, Kansas. Art © T.H. Benton and R.P. Benton Testamentary Trusts/UMB Bank Trustee/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
A painting by Midtown artist Thomas Hart Benton is coming out of storage and going on display at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
Students at Shawnee Mission North High School bought the painting, Utah Highlands, from Benton himself in 1957 as a class gift for the school. For a while the painting hung on the wall of the school library. But in 2008 the school moved the painting to storage, replacing it with a digital replica in the library.
Now it is coming out of storage and will be on view at the Nelson-Atkins by late April. The museum has 130 other Benton paintings, drawings and prints, the largest collection of the artist’s work.
Benton was an American painter who was part of the regionalist movement. His home and studio at 3616 Belleview in the Roanoke neighborhood are a state historic site.
“What forethought the class of 1957 had nearly sixty years ago in their gift of this painting,” said Stephanie Knappe, Samuel Sosland curator of American Art at the Nelson-Atkins, said in a press release. “Thomas Hart Benton, an artist who casts a long shadow in this area, is currently receiving renewed national attention, which makes this timing of this arrangement quite fortuitous.
This fall, the Nelson-Atkins is planning the first major exhibition on Thomas Hart Benton in more than 25 years. American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood will focus on the relationship between Benton’s art, movie making and visual storytelling in 20th-century America.
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