Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) Attributed: The Year of Peril. Oil on canvas, Signed lower right, framed. Verso shows a gallery stamp from Laing Fine Art Galleries. This painting features several motifs from Benton's Year of Peril series he created shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in an effort to awaken Americans to the grimness of the situation with the Axis powers.

Thomas Hart Benton is one of the preeminent pre-war regionalist painters known for depicting the culture and inhabitants of the Midwest, particularly his home state of Missouri. Predominantly known for his murals, he was able to make a name for himself by rejecting the art world and creating art that explicitly protested the Ku Klux Klan and fascism, among other things. Between 1926 and 1941, Benton held teaching positions at the Art Students League in New York, where he taught young artists like Jackson Pollock and Glen Rounds, and the Kansas City Art Institute.

22 x 38.5 inches framed; 14.5 x 31.75 inches canvas.

Private collection, South America.

Good condition with signs of ageing. There is a light amount of surface grime, a few very small dimples in the canvas, and a small spot of what appears to be adhesive residue.

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