Ken Burns' America

Thomas Hart Benton (1x6)

Air date: Nov 01, 1989

His paintings were burly. Energetic. And as uncompromising as the midwestern landscapes and laborers they celebrated. Thomas Hart Benton was a self-reliant America emerging from the Depression. Today his works hang in museums. During his life, Benton preferred to hang them in saloons, where ordinary people could appreciate them in congenial settings. A fierce defender of the aesthetics of realism, Benton took on the art establishment and railed against abstraction. His reputation suffered as his star rose, fell and rose once again. Thomas Hart Benton tells the bittersweet story of a great American artist who became emblematic of the price all artists must pay to remain true to their talents and themselves.