HDI Exhibition pick: “Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today Mural Rediscovered” at the Met

Thomas Hart Benton’s
America Today Mural Rediscovered

September 30, 2014–April 19, 2015, The Metropolitan Museum New York

Another wonderful exhibit currently on view at the Met that shouldn’t be missed is Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today Mural Rediscovered. Benton (1889–1975) painted this mural for New York’s New School for Social Research to adorn the school’s boardroom in its International Style modernist building on West 12th Street. Showing a sweeping panorama of American life throughout the 1920s, America Today ranks among Benton’s most renowned works and is one of the most remarkable accomplishments in American art of the period.

Benton’s mural is powerful and striking in its depiction of almost full scale people integrated in all forms of life in the late 1920’s and it draws you in with a full surround room setting and gives you a feeling of being part of each and every scene.