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Lot Essay
In 1968 Thomas Hart Benton took a sketching trip down the Buffalo River in the Ozark region of Northwest Arkansas—a beloved locale for the regionalist master. The trip resulted in four works depicting the iconic geological feature of the Bat House, or “Skull Bluff”: the present work, a 30 x 38 inch tempera, a smaller study measuring 10 x 13 inches and two watercolors measuring 22 x 26 in., one of which is in the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Robert Sanford described the trip in an article for the July 1968 issue of Auto Club News:
“Being the way it is, the Buffalo has admirers in numbers…Among them is Thomas Hart Benton, distinguished painter of the American Scene, a man who knows a vista when he sees one...With a specific scene in mind, Benton went back to the Buffalo last month...to sketch a bluff known as the Bat House. The Bat House, a solid mass of rock about 100 feet high, had three tunnel-like openings about 15 feet high at the water level that had been worn there by the river. Legend had it that caverns once extended up inside the rock and that bats lived there. We didn't see any. That didn't disappoint Benton. ‘That's a fine piece of natural sculpture,’ he said. Truman [the guide] put it another way: ‘This is about as pretty a place as there is on the whole river. The Old Man has a good eye, all right.’” (as quoted in R.K. Sanford, "Floating and Sketching—Tom Benton Calls on a Bluff—on the Buffalo River," Auto Club News, July 1968, p. 8)
Benton first visited the Buffalo river area in 1926 during his first sketching trip throughout the South, returning again with his son T.P. in 1939 and again in 1940 while he was living in Kansas City, Missouri. In the mid-1960s, Benton along with a group of friends paid annual visits to the river to fish and swim. Sketchpad in hand, Benton’s trips resulted in some of his finest works from this period, including the present work. Indeed, the area meant so much to Benton that he petitioned against efforts to dam the river and wrote a letter of opposition to the Corp Engineers demanding them to “let the river be.” Such efforts were successful, and The Buffalo National River was established in 1972. Today it remains among the few undammed rivers in the lower 48 states.
According to Andrew Thompson, each version of Fishermen's Camp, Buffalo River, shows two 'jon' boats beached on the bank and Benton and the rest of the 'floaters' setting up and relaxing in their camp at day’s end. The figure in the foreground wading in the pool and drying off with a towel is Benton himself. (Thomas Hart Benton: Exhibition of Paintings, 2000, p. 94) Reminiscing about his many river trips in the Ozarks, Benton wrote: "For years I've floated down these rivers every Spring either by canoe or ‘jon’ boat, an extra-long sort of skiff. Sometimes the water is fast and rough, at other times it slows up in deep pools. Generally, the river floaters I run with make camp at the end of the day on the gravel bars lining one of these pools and fish them while supper is cooked." (Creekmore Fath, The Lithographs of Thomas Hart Benton, Austin, Texas, 1979, p. 192)
Painted with Benton’s hallmark blend of undulating forms and bright colors, Fishermen's Camp, Buffalo River eloquently captures the spirit of relaxation among nature which defines his work from this period. Michael Baigell notes, "The streams, gullies, and soft hills of the Middle West—the vacation lands of the artist's mature years—become idyllic haunts of weekend fishermen and Sunday boatmen. The tumult of spirit in earlier paintings has given way to the continuous, easy pulsation of curving water banks, clumps of trees, and those familiar Middle Western clouds." Baigell continues regarding Benton's American landscapes, "At every level of meaning, his image of America was that of a vital, barely controllable power. Even in his late vacation scenes, the undulating contours of the terrain scarcely contain the generative forces pulsating within; he tried to express not merely his joy in experiencing the pleasures of a specific locality, but his love for the entire country." (Thomas Hart Benton, New York, 1974, p. 131)
The original owners of the present work, Lelon and Anna Constable became neighbors of Thomas Hart Benton in 1960. The Constable and Benton families remained close until Benton’s passing in 1975. Subsequently, Anna Constable became involved in art dealing due to her family's close friendship with the Bentons. She remained the preeminent dealer of Benton's works and a key figure of the Benton Homestead Commission, the Friends of the Benton Home Foundation and the Thomas Hart Benton Associates of the Kansas City Art Institute until her passing in 2000.
“Being the way it is, the Buffalo has admirers in numbers…Among them is Thomas Hart Benton, distinguished painter of the American Scene, a man who knows a vista when he sees one...With a specific scene in mind, Benton went back to the Buffalo last month...to sketch a bluff known as the Bat House. The Bat House, a solid mass of rock about 100 feet high, had three tunnel-like openings about 15 feet high at the water level that had been worn there by the river. Legend had it that caverns once extended up inside the rock and that bats lived there. We didn't see any. That didn't disappoint Benton. ‘That's a fine piece of natural sculpture,’ he said. Truman [the guide] put it another way: ‘This is about as pretty a place as there is on the whole river. The Old Man has a good eye, all right.’” (as quoted in R.K. Sanford, "Floating and Sketching—Tom Benton Calls on a Bluff—on the Buffalo River," Auto Club News, July 1968, p. 8)
Benton first visited the Buffalo river area in 1926 during his first sketching trip throughout the South, returning again with his son T.P. in 1939 and again in 1940 while he was living in Kansas City, Missouri. In the mid-1960s, Benton along with a group of friends paid annual visits to the river to fish and swim. Sketchpad in hand, Benton’s trips resulted in some of his finest works from this period, including the present work. Indeed, the area meant so much to Benton that he petitioned against efforts to dam the river and wrote a letter of opposition to the Corp Engineers demanding them to “let the river be.” Such efforts were successful, and The Buffalo National River was established in 1972. Today it remains among the few undammed rivers in the lower 48 states.
According to Andrew Thompson, each version of Fishermen's Camp, Buffalo River, shows two 'jon' boats beached on the bank and Benton and the rest of the 'floaters' setting up and relaxing in their camp at day’s end. The figure in the foreground wading in the pool and drying off with a towel is Benton himself. (Thomas Hart Benton: Exhibition of Paintings, 2000, p. 94) Reminiscing about his many river trips in the Ozarks, Benton wrote: "For years I've floated down these rivers every Spring either by canoe or ‘jon’ boat, an extra-long sort of skiff. Sometimes the water is fast and rough, at other times it slows up in deep pools. Generally, the river floaters I run with make camp at the end of the day on the gravel bars lining one of these pools and fish them while supper is cooked." (Creekmore Fath, The Lithographs of Thomas Hart Benton, Austin, Texas, 1979, p. 192)
Painted with Benton’s hallmark blend of undulating forms and bright colors, Fishermen's Camp, Buffalo River eloquently captures the spirit of relaxation among nature which defines his work from this period. Michael Baigell notes, "The streams, gullies, and soft hills of the Middle West—the vacation lands of the artist's mature years—become idyllic haunts of weekend fishermen and Sunday boatmen. The tumult of spirit in earlier paintings has given way to the continuous, easy pulsation of curving water banks, clumps of trees, and those familiar Middle Western clouds." Baigell continues regarding Benton's American landscapes, "At every level of meaning, his image of America was that of a vital, barely controllable power. Even in his late vacation scenes, the undulating contours of the terrain scarcely contain the generative forces pulsating within; he tried to express not merely his joy in experiencing the pleasures of a specific locality, but his love for the entire country." (Thomas Hart Benton, New York, 1974, p. 131)
The original owners of the present work, Lelon and Anna Constable became neighbors of Thomas Hart Benton in 1960. The Constable and Benton families remained close until Benton’s passing in 1975. Subsequently, Anna Constable became involved in art dealing due to her family's close friendship with the Bentons. She remained the preeminent dealer of Benton's works and a key figure of the Benton Homestead Commission, the Friends of the Benton Home Foundation and the Thomas Hart Benton Associates of the Kansas City Art Institute until her passing in 2000.