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Coming Home: Selections from the Schoen Collection

May 17 - September 14, 2008

Mint Museum of Art

Peppino Mangravite

Tomorrow’s Bread, 1939

22 x 44 ½ inches

This exhibition features approximately twenty paintings from the collection of Jason Schoen, each of which has been carefully selected to complement The Mint Museums’ exhibition Quiet Spirit, Skillful Hand: Wood Engravings, Drawings, and Watercolors by Clare Leighton. Schoen’s outstanding holdings of American Scene paintings trace the social, economic, and political changes that occurred across this country between World Wars I and II — roughly the same era during which Leighton was creating her compelling works on paper. The paintings from the Schoen Collection, including works by artists such as Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, Clarence Holbrook Carter, Joe Jones, Robert Gwathmey, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and Ben Shahn, provide a broad national context for the themes and subjects found in Leighton’s work. This exhibition promises to be not only a rare opportunity for visitors to see numerous works from one of the top collections of American Scene painting in private hands, but also to reflect upon our country’s history as seen through the eyes of some of its most compelling artists.

The American Scene

The majority of the works in the exhibit were created during the Depression and depict vivid scenes of American urban and rural life. Many of the artists received commissions from the Public Works of Art Project. The realistic nature of the paintings is in contrast to Impressionism. Two offshoot movements of American Scene painting were Regionalism and Social Realism. For more information about American Scene painting, see the links below under General Exhibition Resources.

Print out the Kids Guide below before you come! (P.S. It's not just for kids)

Leighton Schoen kids guide.pdf

General Exhibition Resources

Coming Home : American Paintings, 1930-1950, from the Schoen Collection. Athens, GA : Georgia Museum of Art., c2003. ND212 .C658 2003. View the table of contents for the catalog that accompanies this exhibition.
An article on the exhibiton when it appeared at The Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah in 2005.
Information and links about American Scene Painting and Regionalism from the Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., (TFAO) website.
American Scene Painting with examples form the ArtLex Art Dictionary.

Selected Artists Resources

Thomas Hart Benton

Adams, Henry. Thomas Hart Benton : Paintings and Works on Paper. New York : Hammer Galleries 2004. N6537.B457 A4 2004. A brief biography and accompanying explanations of 22 works by Benton, all in color.
Adams, Henry. Thomas Hart Benton: An American Original. Alfred A. Knopf: NY, 1989. ND237 B47 A84 1989. A detailed biography of the artist with chapters recording his life and art and 371 reproductions and photographs, 148 in color.
Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975. Benton's America : works on paper and selected paintings : January 19 to March 2, 1991.New York, N.Y. : Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 1991. N6537.B457 A4 1991 - Fourty six plates of drawings, studies and paintings by Benton.
Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975. World War II through the eyes of Thomas Hart Benton. San Antonio, Tex. : Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, [1991?]. NC139.B45 A4 1991 - Twenty five World War II related works with text and a chronology of the artists life.
Thomas Hart Benton : the America Today Murals. Williamstown, Mass. : Williams College, Museum of Art 1995. ND237.B47 A64 1985. Preliminary sketches, full color reproductions, and background about Benton's murals created at the begiining of the Depression which were in the New School for Social Research in Manhattan.
Thomas Hart Benton and the American South. Augusta, Ga. : Morris Museum of Art, 1998. N6537.B455 A4 1998. Published in conjunction with the exhibition "On the Road with Thomas Hart Benton : Images of a Changing America."
Information on Benton from the American Studies at the University of Virginia site which presents biography, gallery, and historical perspective on American Scene Painters.

John Steuart Curry

Czestochowski, Joseph S. John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood: A Portrait of Rural America. University of Missouri Press: Columbia, MO, 1981. ND237 C88 A4 1981 - The book is divided equally between the artists. Curry's half has 96 figures and there are eight color plates of his paintings in the beginning of the book. There is an article by Curry entitled " Why should the American Artist Paint ?" which appeared in Art Digest in September of 1935.

Curry on the American Studies at the University of Virginia site on American Scene Painters.
The Kansas State Historical Society page, Kansas Portrait, on Curry's commission to paint murals in the Kansas Statehouse in 1937.

Clarence Holbrook Carter

Online Gallery of Carter's work from the Ro Gallery.
In 1964, Richard Dodd interviewed Carter for the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art. Read the transcript here.

Robert Gwathmey

Kammen, Michael. Robert Gwathmey: The Life and Art of a Passionate Observer. University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, NC, 1999. N6537 G9 K36 1999 -"As a lifelong activist against injustice, Gwathmey was kept under surveillance by the FBI for nearly thirty years. Using Gwathmey's FBI file, along with numerous interviews and archival records, Michael Kammen crafts a compelling portrait of an engaging American painter in the midst of dramatic social and political change" With 48 color plates. Read chapter one here.

Joe Jones

The website of the Library of Congress exhibition entitled Life of the People: Realist Prints and Drawings from the Ben and Beatrice Goldstein Collection 1912-1948 has a section titled American Scene with information on Joe Jones and an example of his work.

Kenneth Hayes Miller

The Butler Institute of American Art website features an article about Miller.
A brief bio and photo of Miller from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Ben Shahn

Ben Shahn. Kennedy Galleries: NY, 1969. N6537 S5 A41 1969 - Sixty-four illustrations from the gallery.
Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969. N6537.S5 A41 1976 - Seventy-one illustrations from the Gallery.
Read about Shahn on the American Studies at the University of Virginia site which presents biography, gallery, and historical perspective on American Scene Painters.
The drawings of Ben Shahn, May 14 to June 4th, 1976, Kennedy Galleries. New York: Kennedy Galleries, c1976.
Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969. N6537.S5 A41 1971 Exhibition November 6-27, 1971. New York : Kennedy Galleries, 1971 -Fifty-three illustrations from the gallery.
Soby, James Thrall, 1906-1979. Ben Shahn. [West Drayton, Eng.] : Penguin Books, [1947]. ND237.S465 S6 -Thirty two plates and an essay that introduces Shahn

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