Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975) Loading Paddlewheeler Signed 'Benton' bottom left, ink and wash on paper Sheet size: 9 x 11 in. (22.9 x 27.9cm) Executed in 1928. PROVENANCE: Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York, New York. Louis Newman Galleries, Beverly Hills, California. Martha Parrish & James Reinish, Inc., New York, New York. Private Collection, Washington, D.C. NOTE: In the summer and fall of 1928, Thomas Hart Benton travelled across America with one of his students at the Art Students League, Bill Hayden. Driving in an old Ford, which served as both a bedroom and a studio, Benton explored the Southern states without a set purpose in mind, sketching the daily workers he witnessed in Missouri, Texas, Tennessee or Louisiana. The South represented an important milestone in Benton's oeuvre and overall exploration of American Regionalism; it also inspired the artist to illustrate the complex social and cultural changes the twentieth century imposed on the Nation's at large, and on the southern states specifically. The present work was executed during this transformative journey along the Mississippi River in New Orleans, Louisiana - where the artist and his friend had arrived in August. Benton recalled "I was looking for some of the old river towns where I might get next to authentic first-hand material." The scene depicts a riverbank loading, a rare event in the modern age of train and truck transport. It is one of many ink and pencil drawings that Benton sketched of the Tennessee Belle, an old steamboat that docked in the city for just a few hours every day to let African Americans load it with a variety of goods, including cotton. That same summer, Benton sketched the workers who gambled on the boat's lower decks after receiving their daily wages. See More