Tom Benton and The Art of the American Ballad

Many of Thomas Hart Benton’s most popular works were inspired by the ballads and folk lore of everyday Americans. A proficient harmonica player in his own right, Benton loved music and knew well all the old songs that, for generations, had preserved and shared our oral histories (and tall tales) long before records and radios.

His painting and subsequent lithograph Ten Pound Hammer pays homage to the ballad of folk hero John Henry “The Steel Drivin’ Man” who lost his life driving more steel faster than a steam hammer could -- while the bawdy 19th century saga of Frankie and Johnny that my father used to sing is retold in both the Missouri Capitol mural and a rare, large format lithograph from 1936 -- then there’s the raucous I Got a Gal on Sourwood Mountain where a cockeyed chandelier swings wildly over dancing couples and a bouncing fiddle player in a topsy-turvy farmhouse parlor -- and Wreck of The Ol` 97 is the story of the 1903 rail disaster that was set to verse and shared orally for decades before becoming a standard of Country Music performed by Johnny Cash and many others.

All of these prints, along with a dozen other rare lithographs illustrating Benton’s take on America, including the rare large format Huck Finn, will be up for bid in this auction opportunity unlike any other.