Thomas Hart Benton

American regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri, and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before traveling to Paris to study at the Académie Julian. He moved to New York in 1912 and served as a draftsman and illustrator for the US Navy in Norfolk, Virginia, during World War I. He began painting murals in the 1920s, and his large-scale works depicting regional scenes of everyday American life would make him famous. He taught for a time at the Art Students League in New York starting in 1926, but moved to Kansas City in 1935 to be an instructor at the Kansas City Art Institute. Benton became acquainted with fellow Midwest artists John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, and together the three became the best-known proponents of regionalism, believing that art should communicate the spirit of a place. Benton lived in Kansas City for the remainder of his career and continued to take commissions for murals until his death in 1975.