Author and Professor of American Art History Featured Speaker at Crystal Bridges

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Explore the vision of regionalist painter, Thomas Hart Benton, through his love of music! Leo Mazow, author and University of Arkansas associate professor of American art history, will present a lecture titled "Thomas Hart Benton: Painting the Song" from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 10, in the Great Hall of Crystal Bridges Musuem of American Art in Bentonville.

Learn about Benton’s lifetime (1889–1975) and his work not only as an artist but also as a performing musician who invented a harmonica tablature notation system, and who was also a collector, cataloguer, transcriber and distributor of popular music. Drawing on material from his newly released book, Thomas Hart Benton and the American Sound, Mazow takes stock of Benton’s most important paintings that depict musical performance and passages taken from folk songs.

Benton found inspiration for his art in classic tunes such as “John Henry,” “Wreck of the Old ’97,” and “Frankie and Johnnie.” Joined on-stage by local blues musician Adam Posnak, the speaker will punctuate his slide lecture with live performances of a few of these songs. Mazow’s book Thomas Hart Benton and The American Sound will be available for purchase before and after the lecture in the south lobby.

Great Hall Lectures are free, but require online reservation as space is limited.

About the Lecturer:
Leo G. Mazow is associate professor of American art history at the University of Arkansas. Among the exhibitions and accompanying publications he has organized are Picturing the Banjo; Taxing Visions: Financial Episodes in Late Nineteenth-Century American Art; and Shallow Creek: Thomas Hart Benton and American Waterways.

Based in West Fork, Adam Posnak is a frequently exhibiting potter who plays guitar in the band Devils Promenade.