Collections: American Art: Louisiana Rice Fields

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This image is presented as a "thumbnail" because it is protected by copyright. The Brooklyn Museum respects the rights of artists who retain the copyright to their work.

Louisiana Rice Fields

The depiction of laboring rice harvesters is typical of the work of Thomas Hart Benton, a leader in the American Scene movement of painting the arose in that late 1920s. Benton and his peers deliberately abandoned European-derived subjects and urban setting in favor of imagery drawn from rural America. Born in Missouri and educated in Chicago and Paris, Benton began to seek out these themes in 1926, during the first of the many trips through the Midwest and the South. Focusing on the broad appeal of the commonplace he described American "types" rather than specific individuals and place, and rendered them in a directly expressive, almost caricatured manner.

• Artist: Thomas Hart Benton, American, 1889-1975
• Medium: Egg tempera and oil on Masonite
• Dates: 1928
• Dimensions: 30 1/8 x 47 7/8 in. (76.5 x 121.6 cm)
• Signature: Signed lower right: "Benton"
• Collections: American Art
• Museum Location: This item is on view in American Identities: A New Look, Everyday Life/A Nation Divided, 5th Floor
• Accession Number: 38.79
• Credit Line: John B. Woodward Memorial Fund
• Image: Overall, 38.79_PS1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2005
Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975). Louisiana Rice Fields, 1928. Egg tempera and oil on Masonite, 30 1/8 x 47 7/8 in. (76.5 x 121.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, John B. Woodward Memorial Fund, 38.79 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 38.79_PS1.jpg)