{"product_id":"an-artist-in-america-4th-revised-edition-volume-1-9780826203991","title":"An Artist in America 4th Revised Edition (Volume 1)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn Artist in America 4th Revised Edition (Volume 1)\u003c\/strong\u003e by Thomas Hart Benton. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780826203991.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eControversial, flamboyant, contentious, brilliant--Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) was certainly all of those. Few American artists have stirred so much love and hatred as he did in a career that lasted almost seventy years. Although his painting aroused much controversy, perhaps equally as much was created by his words, for his piercing wit, profane sarcasms, and insightful condemnations were fired off without restraint. In this fiery and provocative autobiography, Benton presents an intriguing records of American art and society during his lifetime.\nThe first installment of this work was published in 1937, but Benton continued his life story in chapters added to editions published in 1951 and 1968. This new edition includes seventy-six drawings that add much to his narrative, plus a foreword discussing Bentons place in American art and an afterword covering his career after 1968, both written by art historian Matthew Baigell.\nAlthough Benton is most famous as a regionalist painter and muralist, his complex and fascinating career brought him into contact with many of the most important artists and thinkers of the century, including Jackson Pollock, Grant Wood, Julian Huxley, Felix Frankfurter, Eugene Debbs, John Reed, and Harry Truman. While living in New York and on Marthas Vineyard in the 1920s and 1930s, Benton often associated with leading intellectuals and radicals. However, when his evolving principles of art led him away from an interest in Marxism, he was bitterly attacked by many of his former friends, and his account of that time reveals strikingly the fierce critical battles he faced in trying to establish his own artistic vision.\nCritics on the Left were not his only opponents, however, and equally revealing are his responses to the moral condemnations heaped on his murals done for the states of Indiana and Missouri and on his realistic nudes of the late 1930s.\nThroughout his account, from descriptions of his boyhood in southwest Missouri, his travels, and his career to discussions of specific works of art and other artists, Benton portrays people and events as vividly in words as he does in his paintings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"University of Missouri Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44959041028149,"sku":"ByrdShop_082620399X","price":55.16,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780826203991_5db878b9-0a25-438b-bdc6-aab447bcecc1.jpg?v=1778655041","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/an-artist-in-america-4th-revised-edition-volume-1-9780826203991","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}