Thomas Hart Benton (1889 – 1975) – White Bluffs, Buffalo River (1973)

Thomas Hart Benton (1889 – 1975) – White Bluffs, Buffalo River (1973):

Thomas Hart Benton (1889 – 1975)
White Bluffs, Buffalo River(1973)
tempera on board
9.5 × 14 inches
signed and dated lower left

VERSO
Signed and titled
Label, J. N. Bartfield Galleries, New York, New York

An original bill of sale from J. N. Bartfield Galleries will accompany the lot.

Benton historian Andy Ostmeyer wrote, “Besides being America’s first national river, protected in 1972, the Buffalo is as red, white and blue a place as you can get. It passes at least two named Red Bluffs, ends at the White River and flows through numerous named Blue Holes. Add to that the bald eagles. With numerous prehistoric and historic sites along the river listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Buffalo preserves not just the river, but many American stories.

“Benton spent a lifetime floating — and painting — Ozark rivers. He first visited the Buffalo in the 1920s, and returned many times over the next half-century. He also lent his name and talent to the fight to protect the river from dams in the 1960s. At one point, Benton wrote directly to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: ‘As a lover of the great scenic beauty of the Buffalo River, I would like to add my name to those others which are lined up against plans to put a dam across its waters.… Man, hog-tied as he largely is, with the steel tentacles of an increasingly mechanistic world and with the prospect of being tied ever tighter, needs some areas of escape, of escape to the natural world from which he came. He’ll need all the more of these in the future. The Buffalo River provides one of these areas. I say, and I intend it emphatically: Let the river be.’

“Over the years, Benton painted numerous scenes along the Buffalo. Many are unidentifiable bluffs, but others are known, such as White Bluffs. According to Benton: ‘The most beautiful rivers for making drawings and paintings are these rather small ones, with their bluffs in Missouri and Northwest Arkansas, like the Buffalo, which is one of the most beautiful in the United States.’”

PROVENANCE
J. N. Bartfield Galleries, New York, New York, 2011
Robert D. Reed Collection, Jacksonville, Florida

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As viewed through glass. Painting appears to be in excellent condition.