Benton, Thomas Hart

US painter

1889 - Born on the 15th of April in Neosho, Missouri, USA.

1907 - Benton enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago.

1909 - Moved to Paris, France to continue his art education at the Académie Julian.

1913 - Benton returned to New York City and continued painting.

1919 - Worked as a draftsman in the United States Navy, changed his style significantly.

1920 - Declared him an "enemy of modernism" and began the naturalistic and representational work today known as Regionalism.

1930-1931 - Expanded the scale of his Regionalist works, culminating in the America Today murals at the New School for Social Research.

1932 - Benton broke through to the mainstream.

1933 - Chosen to produce the murals of Indiana life that would become that state's contribution to the Century

of Progress Exhibition in Chicago, Illinois.

1941 - Benton was dismissed from the Art Institute but he remained in Kansas City.

1960 - His work on the Harry S. Truman presidential library initiated a friendship with the former U.S. President.

1975 - Benton died on 19th of January at work in his studio, brush in hand.

Grandnephew of Thomas Hart Benton.