Benton was the son of U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who wanted his son and namesake to follow in his footsteps. Instead the younger Benton went his own way, lived in poverty for years and eventually found the style that made him more famous than his father.
Benton called himself a realist, known for his murals that seem to shimmer. His images, while stationary, seem to writhe. Nobody has adequately described Thomas Hart Benton paintings, yet they are instantly recognizable.
Benton met and married Rita, the love of his life, and she stuck with him through his years of poverty, his heavy drinking, his carousing and his failures, protecting his image as well as his images, selling and promoting his paintings.
It may be difficult to believe that Jackson Pollock, known for his abstract drip paintings, was his student, as well as one of his closest friends. Benton's hot-and-cold relationship with President Harry S. Truman also makes fascinating reading. Benton wanted Truman's approval, yet Truman tended to say what he felt, not necessarily what others wanted him to say.
What I find hard to swallow in Wolff's biography is his conclusion that Benton should have been more like Pollock, more open to abstract expressionism. True, Benton may have been out of step with many of his contemporaries, but he ultimately found his style, and that style served him well.
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