The Arts of Life in America: Arts of the West / Thomas Hart Benton (1932)

The Arts of Life in America: Arts of the West / Thomas Hart Benton (1932)
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Thomas Hart Benton (1889 – 1975) was an American painter and muralist, says Wikipedia.

Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. His fluid, almost sculpted paintings showed everyday scenes of life in the United States.

Though his work is strongly associated with the Midwest, he painted scores of works of New York City, where he lived for more than 20 years; Martha’s Vineyard, where he summered for much of his adult life; the American South; and the American West.

Benton taught at the Art Students League of New York from 1926 to 1935 and at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1935 to 1941. His most famous student, Jackson Pollock, whom he mentored in the Art Students League, would diverge from Benton's style and found the Abstract Expressionist movement. Pollock often said that Benton's traditional teachings gave him something to rebel against.