From:
National Gallery, Washington D.C.
Named after his great-uncle, a five-term senator, Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) was born on April 15, 1889, in Neosho, Missouri.
His father, Maecenus Eason Benton, was a lawyer and a United States representative from 1896-1904, so the young Benton spent his early years in both Washington, DC, and southwest Missouri.
Benton dropped out of high school at 17 and started working as a cartoonist for the Joplin American newspaper.
His mother, Elizabeth Wise Benton, was supportive of his artistic ambitions, but Benton’s father enrolled him in the Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois, in 1906 before agreeing to allow him to attend the Art Institute of Chicago in 1907.