crayon construction
Thomas Hart Benton "Crayon Construction"
DETAILS:
Colored crayon and pencil on paper
6 1/4 by 5 inches
Provenance:
The artist
Mildred Small Benton, youngest sister of the artist
Christie's, New York, 30 September 1982, lot 6
Henry M. Reed, Caldwell, New Jersey
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
Private Collector, acquired from the above July 28, 2003
Catalogue note:
According to Henry Adams, "...during the early 1920s his (Benton's) chief artistic concern
was to devise a means of unifying and interlocking the forms of his paintings into an
aesthetic unity. In 1926 he summarized his discoveries in a series of articles on "The
Mechanics of Form Organization," which describe the fundamental principles of abstract
composition.
For Benton, the mastery of such abstract organization was simply a way station on the road
to the mastery of representational painting. While he never abandoned his use of abstract
principles, his paintings after 1930 contain powerful and controversial subject matter that
their control of formal organization has been largely overlooked. His pupil, Jackson
Pollock, on the other hand, used Benton's compositional principles as a launching point
for radical experiments in abstract art." (Henry Adams "Thomas Hart Benton, An American
Original," 1989; p. 110).
This work was probably made on Martha's Vineyard about 1922 and was probably a study
for "Chilmark" painted in 1923. (Click on Chilmark to see a comparison). Benton painted
some abstract compositions as early as 1917 which resemble "crayon construction",
however the comparison of this work to "Chilmark" is striking. Furthermore, Benton's
younger sister, Mildred, the owner of this work had moved to the Vineyard with her mother
and was probably given the work during that time.
DETAILS:
Colored crayon and pencil on paper
6 1/4 by 5 inches
Provenance:
The artist
Mildred Small Benton, youngest sister of the artist
Christie's, New York, 30 September 1982, lot 6
Henry M. Reed, Caldwell, New Jersey
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
Private Collector, acquired from the above July 28, 2003
Catalogue note:
According to Henry Adams, "...during the early 1920s his (Benton's) chief artistic concern
was to devise a means of unifying and interlocking the forms of his paintings into an
aesthetic unity. In 1926 he summarized his discoveries in a series of articles on "The
Mechanics of Form Organization," which describe the fundamental principles of abstract
composition.
For Benton, the mastery of such abstract organization was simply a way station on the road
to the mastery of representational painting. While he never abandoned his use of abstract
principles, his paintings after 1930 contain powerful and controversial subject matter that
their control of formal organization has been largely overlooked. His pupil, Jackson
Pollock, on the other hand, used Benton's compositional principles as a launching point
for radical experiments in abstract art." (Henry Adams "Thomas Hart Benton, An American
Original," 1989; p. 110).
This work was probably made on Martha's Vineyard about 1922 and was probably a study
for "Chilmark" painted in 1923. (Click on Chilmark to see a comparison). Benton painted
some abstract compositions as early as 1917 which resemble "crayon construction",
however the comparison of this work to "Chilmark" is striking. Furthermore, Benton's
younger sister, Mildred, the owner of this work had moved to the Vineyard with her mother
and was probably given the work during that time.
THOMAS HART BENTON 1889-1975
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