Thomas Hart Benton: A Picture of America in Its Entirety at Schoelkopf Gallery

Schoelkopf Gallery's Thomas Hart Benton exhibition, A Picture of America in Its Entirety, runs from September 9 and closes today, October 16. It is described as the gallery's first solo presentation of Benton in New York in more than a decade, and it brings together major paintings and mural studies from across roughly five decades of his career.

The checklist is wide in both date and subject. The earliest work is Chilmark Landscape from 1925; the latest is a Self-Portrait from 1974. Between them sit Edge of the Field (Cotton Pickers), dated 1943–61, Sugar Cane from 1945, and Trail Riders from about 1964–65. Western landscapes include The Desert (1956) and Wyoming Landscape (c. 1955–60), so the show moves from the rural South to the open West through one painter's eyes.

Figures and portraits give the show another register. Conversation (1952), The Hymn Singer (c. 1950) and a portrait of Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1961–62) are all included. Study for "The Kentuckian" (1954) offers a look at how Benton planned a larger composition before committing to it, which is the kind of material mural studies are good for.

Benton is known for rural labor, folk life and landscape rendered in strongly sculpted, rhythmic forms. For Japanese visitors curious about twentieth-century American painting outside the abstract mainstream, this is a compact way to see that tradition in one room, with works spanning the 1920s to the 1970s.

Today is the final day, so any visit has to happen before the gallery closes. Admission is free. Additional views of the works are posted on the gallery's website.