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Lot Essay
As the twentieth century's champion of rural America, Thomas Hart Benton regularly portrayed the honest and hardworking people that he met during his travels throughout the country. From his earliest works on, he showed a keen interest in rediscovering every aspect of the United States from his childhood. After a rich period of achievement in the 1930s, the artist turned to more contemporary and serious subject matter in the 1940s, namely World War II. However, in contrast to the highly charged paintings with overt political content that Benton painted at this time, Fisherman at Sunset of 1943 is a tranquil glorification of simple life in America.
At the height of Benton's career, Maynard Walker, a New York art dealer with Kansas roots, lauded his art in a 1933 article in Art Digest where he "contrasted [his] sturdy realism with the bizarre eccentricities of the French modernists. ....[He went on to say that] 'One of the most significant things in the art world today is the increasing importance of real American art. I mean an art which really springs from American soil and seeks to interpret American life... And very noticeably much of the most vital modern art in America is coming out of our long backward Middle West. Largely through the creative output of a few sincere and vital painters, the East is learning that there is an America west of the Alleghenies and that it is worth being put on canvas.'" (H. Adams, Thomas Hart Benton, An American Original, New York, 1989, p. 217) Benton strayed little from this type of subject matter during the course of his career. From paintings to mural commissions, he used the same distinctly American iconography and themes to express himself.
Fisherman at Sunst depicts Menemsha Lake in Martha's Vineyard, and is a classic example of Benton's work as it succinctly describes his absolute reverence for the working people of America. Although it does not depict the same fisherman, it is related to a passage he wrote in 1928 about a fisherman who he met in Louisiana in its supportive and respectful attitude: "We made the acquaintance here of a shanty-boat fisherman, an old fellow who had come down the river from Iowa. Caught in big floodwaters many years before, he had moored his boat in this locality. When the flood began to subside, he had found himself shut off from the open water by a mass of broken tree trunks and was stranded. He said he used to try to get his craft back in the river but finally gave up the thought and just stayed on. He lived in this lonely place with a cat, a dog, and a Negro and who like himself was alone in the world, without land or woman. In the narrow cabin of the stranded and rotting shanty boat the two lived with their pets. They were like affectionate brothers. They ate together and worked side by side." (H. Adams, Thomas Hart Benton, Drawings from Life, Seattle, Washington, 1990, pp. 98-99) Although the figure in this watercolor is not the Louisiana fisherman, Benton has clearly chosen to depict the same type of person. For Benton, this fisherman, in his simplicity, epitomized the virtues of the American nation. In his characteristic style, having reduced his composition to a few key elements and omitting all superfluous detail, Benton makes the strongest impact upon his viewer. The fisherman, stooped and pushing a boat, with his exaggerated hands, signifies the American work ethic. The sun, circular and in the center of the composition, presides serenely over the lake, far from the atrocities of the Second World War.
It is no surprise that he returned time and again to depicting his favorite icons as they were deeply connected to his ideology. Henry Adams notes that as "much as he struggled to keep up with the young soldiers, Benton felt most at home with the subjects of an earlier period. Throughout the early forties, concurrently with these war-related pictures, he continued to paint peaceful rural subjects." (Thomas Hart Benton, An American Original, p. 316) This work is yet another brilliant product of this passionate and often outspoken artist, in his desire to express the "vigorously American art he favored." (Thomas Hart Benton, Drawings from Life, p. 33)
At the height of Benton's career, Maynard Walker, a New York art dealer with Kansas roots, lauded his art in a 1933 article in Art Digest where he "contrasted [his] sturdy realism with the bizarre eccentricities of the French modernists. ....[He went on to say that] 'One of the most significant things in the art world today is the increasing importance of real American art. I mean an art which really springs from American soil and seeks to interpret American life... And very noticeably much of the most vital modern art in America is coming out of our long backward Middle West. Largely through the creative output of a few sincere and vital painters, the East is learning that there is an America west of the Alleghenies and that it is worth being put on canvas.'" (H. Adams, Thomas Hart Benton, An American Original, New York, 1989, p. 217) Benton strayed little from this type of subject matter during the course of his career. From paintings to mural commissions, he used the same distinctly American iconography and themes to express himself.
Fisherman at Sunst depicts Menemsha Lake in Martha's Vineyard, and is a classic example of Benton's work as it succinctly describes his absolute reverence for the working people of America. Although it does not depict the same fisherman, it is related to a passage he wrote in 1928 about a fisherman who he met in Louisiana in its supportive and respectful attitude: "We made the acquaintance here of a shanty-boat fisherman, an old fellow who had come down the river from Iowa. Caught in big floodwaters many years before, he had moored his boat in this locality. When the flood began to subside, he had found himself shut off from the open water by a mass of broken tree trunks and was stranded. He said he used to try to get his craft back in the river but finally gave up the thought and just stayed on. He lived in this lonely place with a cat, a dog, and a Negro and who like himself was alone in the world, without land or woman. In the narrow cabin of the stranded and rotting shanty boat the two lived with their pets. They were like affectionate brothers. They ate together and worked side by side." (H. Adams, Thomas Hart Benton, Drawings from Life, Seattle, Washington, 1990, pp. 98-99) Although the figure in this watercolor is not the Louisiana fisherman, Benton has clearly chosen to depict the same type of person. For Benton, this fisherman, in his simplicity, epitomized the virtues of the American nation. In his characteristic style, having reduced his composition to a few key elements and omitting all superfluous detail, Benton makes the strongest impact upon his viewer. The fisherman, stooped and pushing a boat, with his exaggerated hands, signifies the American work ethic. The sun, circular and in the center of the composition, presides serenely over the lake, far from the atrocities of the Second World War.
It is no surprise that he returned time and again to depicting his favorite icons as they were deeply connected to his ideology. Henry Adams notes that as "much as he struggled to keep up with the young soldiers, Benton felt most at home with the subjects of an earlier period. Throughout the early forties, concurrently with these war-related pictures, he continued to paint peaceful rural subjects." (Thomas Hart Benton, An American Original, p. 316) This work is yet another brilliant product of this passionate and often outspoken artist, in his desire to express the "vigorously American art he favored." (Thomas Hart Benton, Drawings from Life, p. 33)