3 6 3 the huge paintings of thomas hart benton (social studies)

Thomas Hart Benton liked to paint murals.. Choose one of Thomas Hart Benton’s paintings of life in the United States?. 5 Chapter 1 Thomas Hart Benton, Muralist Do you have murals in yo

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by Peggy Bresnick Kendler

Suggested levels for Guided Reading, DRA, ™

Lexile, ® and Reading Recovery ™ are provided

in the Pearson Scott Foresman Leveling Guide.

Scott Foresman Reading Street 3.6.3

ISBN 0-328-13405-8 ì<(sk$m)=bdeafc< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U

Biography

Skills and Strategy Text Features

Biography • Fact and Opinion

• Author’s Purpose

• Answer Questions

• Captions

• Table of Contents

• Glossary

Suggested levels for Guided Reading, DRA, ™

Lexile, ® and Reading Recovery ™ are provided

in the Pearson Scott Foresman Leveling Guide.

Scott Foresman Reading Street 3.6.3

ISBN 0-328-13405-8 ì<(sk$m)=bdeafc< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U

Biography

Skills and Strategy Text Features

Biography • Fact and Opinion

• Author’s Purpose

• Answer Questions

• Captions

• Table of Contents

• Glossary

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Facts Opinions

Vocabulary

ally

appreciated

encouraged

enlisted

expression

legacy

murals

native

social

support

Word count: 1,182

Note: The total word count includes words in the running text and headings only

Numerals and words in chapter titles, captions, labels, diagrams, charts, graphs,

sidebars, and extra features are not included.

Reader Response

1 Look closely at the painting of daily life

in America on pages 18–19 What can you tell about daily life from the painting?

Record facts and opinions in a chart like the one below

2 Thomas Hart Benton liked to paint murals

Why do you think he liked to paint murals rather than smaller paintings?

3 Use a dictionary to look up the word

social How many definitions do you find?

Choose one of the other definitions (not

sentence to show that meaning.

4 Choose one of Thomas Hart Benton’s

paintings of life in the United States Tell what good things and what bad things it shows about our country.

Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois • Parsippany, New Jersey • New York, New York Sales Offices: Needham, Massachusetts • Duluth, Georgia • Glenview, Illinois

Coppell, Texas • Ontario, California • Mesa, Arizona

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Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for

photographic material The publisher deeply regrets any omission and pledges to

correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.

Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman,

a division of Pearson Education.

Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R),

Background (Bkgd)

All Thomas H Benton artwork: ©T H Benton and R P Benton Testamentary Trusts/

UMB Bank Trustee/Licensed by VAGA, NY.

Cover ©Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum; 1 ©Time Life Pictures/Getty Images;

4 ©Robert W Kelley/Getty Images; 6 “Fishermans Camp No 1, Buffalo River, Ozarks,

North Arkansas” painting by Thomas Hart Benton ©Christie’s Images/SuperStock;

8 ©Lake County Museum/Corbis; 9 ©Judith Miller Archive/DK Images; 10 ©Time

Life Pictures/Getty Images; 11 “Still Life With Guitar”, 1924, Pablo Picasso ©Artists

Rights Society (ARS), NY/Photo ©Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY; 12 “Industry

(Woman Spinning)” 1924–27 by Thomas Hart Benton Oil on canvas, 66¹⁄8 by 30

in./Photo ©Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago/Art Resource, NY; 13 “Cotton

Pickers, Georgia” by Thomas Hart Benton Oil on canvas./SuperStock; 14 Courtesy of

Missouri State Museum; 16 ©Robert W Kelley/Getty Images; 18 Country Music Hall of

Fame and Museum; 20 Alfred Eisenstaedt/Getty Images

ISBN: 0-328-13405-8

and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited

reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form by any

means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise For information

regarding permission(s), write to: Permissions Department, Scott Foresman, 1900 East

Lake Avenue, Glenview, Illinois 60025.

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0H3 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06

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CONTENTS

Thomas Hart Benton, Muralist

The Early Years

Thomas’s Big Break

Fame and Friendship

The Legacy of Thomas Hart Benton

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Thomas Hart Benton’s murals sometimes covered entire walls or ceilings.

5

Chapter 1

Thomas Hart Benton, Muralist

Do you have murals in your school?

Every school should have one or more

of these huge paintings that can cover entire walls or ceilings One of the most famous American painters of murals was Thomas Hart Benton

Thomas lived in the Midwest, but he traveled all over the country He painted Midwest farmers working in the fields

He painted people going to church in the Southwest He painted western rodeos

He made paintings of factory workers and navy men working in submarines!

Although he did many different kinds

of paintings, Thomas is best known for his murals He would paint each panel separately; then he would mount the painted panels on a wall or ceiling This way it was easy to move the murals from one place to another

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Chapter 2

The Early Years

Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri, in 1889 Politics was in

his blood His great uncle was the first U S

senator from Missouri Thomas’s father,

Maecenas E Benton, was also in politics, a

lawyer and a congressman

Young Tom Benton spent his early childhood boating and fishing on the rivers

near his home Traveling with his family to

Thomas Hart Benton grew up in Neosho, Missouri, near the Ozark Mountains He often included those mountains in his landscapes.

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help his father campaign for Congress, he visited many parts of the state, meeting a lot of people

When young Tom was eight years old, his family moved to Washington, D.C., because his father had been elected to the U.S Senate Tom spent the next few years traveling between Missouri and Washington, D.C

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The Art Institute of Chicago

8

Thomas’s father wanted his son to

go into politics, but Thomas had other

ideas He wanted to be an artist Thomas’s

mother was an ally to her son She gave

him her support and encouraged him to

follow his dream

Thomas’s father thought differently

In 1906, when Thomas was 17, his father

sent him to military school Thomas was

very unhappy there

Finally, when Thomas’s father saw how unhappy his son was, he allowed Thomas

to go to the Art Institute of Chicago

There, Thomas could paint all day, and that

made him very happy

Thomas Hart Benton made this drawing

while he was in the navy.

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When World War I began, Thomas

enlisted in the navy He lived on a base

in Norfolk, Virginia, where his job was to draw the ships, the people, and life on the base The navy wanted the drawings to

be as realistic as possible, and, of course, Thomas did his best

When Thomas got out of the navy, artists were flocking to New York City, so Thomas moved there too

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Thomas Hart Benton painted this self-portrait.

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Pablo Picasso’s

The Studio is

an example of cubism, a style

of art in which objects are represented by cubes and other shapes.

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Chapter 3

Thomas’s Big Break

In Thomas’s time, most artists didn’t make a lot of money and had to find other work besides painting Thomas taught at the Art Students League

In 1922, Thomas married one of his art students, Rita Piacenza They had a son, Thomas Jr., and a daughter, Jessie

Thomas painted things as he saw them His art is very realistic and is called representational art because it

“represents” what the artist sees

Not all artists painted like Thomas

Many artists, such as Pablo Picasso, painted with angles and shapes Abstract artists painted with unusual forms and colors Thomas didn’t feel these styles were for everyday people and chose to express himself in his own way

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This is a portion of

Brideship, a mural by

Thomas Hart Benton.

While in New York City, Thomas began painting huge murals One series was called American Historical Epic These

paintings showed life in America from colonial days to Thomas’s time

Thomas meant

to include seventy-five paintings in the series, but he completed just seventeen murals before 1927 He grouped the artwork into three chapters

of history, covering the first colonists, economic life in the early colonies, and westward expansion

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Thomas Hart Benton painted daily life in America.

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Thomas Hart Benton’s big break came

in 1929 when he was hired to do nine murals He called the series America Today

because it showed what life was like in America at the time These murals were hung in a big room at the New School for

Social Research in New York City These

paintings made Thomas famous

Many people loved the murals, but

some people were upset They appreciated

Thomas’s great skill in painting hard-working Indiana people But they didn’t agree with Thomas’s views They thought

he was prejudiced

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This mural is part of the series

A Social History of the State of Missouri

Thomas Hart Benton painted this series

of murals in his home state of Missouri.

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Chapter 4

Fame and Friendship

In 1935, Thomas Hart

Benton returned to his native

state of Missouri, where he taught art at the Kansas City Art Institute He also painted murals for the state capitol in Jefferson City

These murals are called

A Social History of the State

of Missouri They cover four

walls and show the history of Missouri Thomas didn’t paint just the people of Missouri

He also used characters from famous books, such as the characters Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer from Missouri writer Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn Today, the murals still

hang in the state capitol building

Thomas left the Kansas City Art Institute in 1941 to paint eight paintings about World War II This series was called

The Year of Peril.

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President Harry S Truman was a good friend of

Thomas Hart Benton He even helped to paint

some of Thomas Hart Benton’s famous mural!

16

Many former U S Presidents build presidential libraries in their home states

People from all over the country come

to visit these libraries President Harry S

Truman built his library in Independence,

Missouri, in 1957 He hired Thomas to

paint a mural for it

Both men agreed that the mural would show the early days of Independence,

Missouri It would include Native Americans,

settlers, and farmers

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One day while Thomas was painting, President Truman kept making

suggestions Thomas couldn’t concentrate,

so he stopped painting, climbed down from his platform, and faced the President

“If you want to paint, come up here,” he told the President

President Truman smiled and said, “By golly, I will.” He climbed up the ladder and began to paint After that, Thomas and President Truman were great friends

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Thomas Hart Benton often painted Missouri river and boat scenes

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Chapter 5

The Legacy of Thomas Hart Benton

You only have to look at Thomas Hart Benton’s murals

to see how powerful they are

What makes the work

of Thomas Hart Benton so important? It is not just what he painted, it is how

he painted it His work is an

expression of the way he felt

about the history, events, and life in the United States He loved his country and wanted

to celebrate the good things about it He also wanted to point out the bad things He created an honest picture, hoping people would see the bad and do something about it

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Even in his eighties, Thomas Hart Benton still loved to paint

Here he is in 1971, with a self-portrait that he painted at his

summer home.

Thomas Hart Benton didn’t let old age stop him from doing what he loved! Even

at age eighty, he still painted

Thomas continued to work on his murals Sometimes he worked at home

in Kansas City, Missouri, while at other

times he worked at his summer home on

Martha’s Vineyard, a small island off the

coast of Massachusetts

In January 1975, Thomas Hart Benton died while doing what he liked best—

painting

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Today, Thomas Hart Benton’s home and studio are open to the public We can see firsthand where he worked and lived His paintings are in many museums and buildings, and many are reprinted in books

Thomas Hart Benton is America’s most important muralist We can see the history

of the United States through the eyes of this remarkable artist

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Activity, Scene, or People Description

22

Now Try This

Your Life Today

Thomas Hart Benton created realistic paintings of life around him Today, you’re

going to be an artist and a historian too

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• Copy the chart on page 22 onto a sheet

of paper

• In the first column, list a part of your life that is important to you It may

be an activity, a group of people, or a place

• In the second column, write some details about a part of your life

Describe the scene, the people, or the activity

• For example, if one of the activities important to you is soccer, you would write the words “Soccer Game” in the left column In the right column, you would describe a soccer game You would write sentences that describe the activity

• When you have completed the chart for five activities, scenes, or people, make

a drawing of each one You will have

a series of five mini-murals that show

your life today!

• Share your chart and your murals with

a classmate

Her e’s H ow to D o It!

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Glossary

helper.

valued; enjoyed; was

grateful for.

gave support to.

signed on.

act of putting into

words or visual form.

by someone.

paintings.

belonging to someone because

of birth.

to human society.

encouragement;

help.

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