Thomas Hart Benton, Kansas City, Missouri

Duane Michals, artist

born 1932

Thomas Hart Benton, Kansas City, Missouri, circa 1967

Portfolio/Series title: "Art News From Nowhere," published in Esquire

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: chromogenic color print

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 35.6 x 23.5 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 14 x 9 1/4 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 20 x 16 in

Credit line: Gift of Esquire, Inc.

Accession number: 1980.0493.02

Not on display

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In the 1960s, Esquire featured emerging contemporary art and artists who experimented with non-traditional subject matter. Their spotlight on Ed Ruscha helpfully includes a pronunciation of his name for readers unfamiliar with the artist (“REW-SHAY”), and an explanation that Ruscha photographs mundane things around Los Angeles. His western shirt identifies him as a “country and western type,” differentiating him from other artists, like Andy Warhol, who frequented the magazine’s pages.
Meanwhile, the magazine’s attention to “forgotten” artists who were well-known in the 1930s and ‘40s, such as Rockwell Kent and Charles Burchfield, includes an image of Thomas Hart Benton sitting in his Kansas City home. These men—posed with examples of their paintings—illuminate the changing and perhaps fickle nature of popular tastes.