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Lot Essay
The present work was painted by Thomas Hart Benton in gratitude to a pediatrician, Dr. Robert N. Ganz, on Martha’s Vineyard who took care of his grandchildren. The painting depicts Paint Mill Brook, which feeds a historic mill on the doctor’s property in Chilmark, Massachusetts. Benton was photographed by Life magazine in 1969 with a closely related tempera on his easel, and a small oil painting of the scene is in the Benton Trust collection.
Benton first visited Martha’s Vineyard in 1920, seeking refuge from hot summers in New York City. Sparsely populated at the time—well before it became a popular vacation destination—the island provided new clarity with which Benton developed his singular artistic language. As the artist himself reported, “Martha’s Vineyard had a profound effect on me. The relaxing sea air, the hot sand on the beaches where we loafed naked, the great and continuous drone of the surf, broke down most of the tenseness which life in the cities had given me. It separated me from the Bohemias of art and put a physical sanity into my life for four months of the year….It freed my art from the dominance of narrow urban conceptions and put me in a psychological condition to face America.” (as quoted in P. Burroughs, Thomas Hart Benton: A Portrait, New York, 1981, p. 100)
While he would eventually move to the Midwest, Benton continuously returned to Martha’s Vineyard throughout his career, and his island scenes always maintained a place of prominence. He eventually purchased a home in the Chilmark area, and in the 1950s purchased another small cottage on Menemsha Pond for his son T.P. to stay. When T.P. moved away in 1960, Benton relocated his studio to the structure and continued to paint depictions of the Vineyard’s landscapes, such as the present work.
Benton first visited Martha’s Vineyard in 1920, seeking refuge from hot summers in New York City. Sparsely populated at the time—well before it became a popular vacation destination—the island provided new clarity with which Benton developed his singular artistic language. As the artist himself reported, “Martha’s Vineyard had a profound effect on me. The relaxing sea air, the hot sand on the beaches where we loafed naked, the great and continuous drone of the surf, broke down most of the tenseness which life in the cities had given me. It separated me from the Bohemias of art and put a physical sanity into my life for four months of the year….It freed my art from the dominance of narrow urban conceptions and put me in a psychological condition to face America.” (as quoted in P. Burroughs, Thomas Hart Benton: A Portrait, New York, 1981, p. 100)
While he would eventually move to the Midwest, Benton continuously returned to Martha’s Vineyard throughout his career, and his island scenes always maintained a place of prominence. He eventually purchased a home in the Chilmark area, and in the 1950s purchased another small cottage on Menemsha Pond for his son T.P. to stay. When T.P. moved away in 1960, Benton relocated his studio to the structure and continued to paint depictions of the Vineyard’s landscapes, such as the present work.