Thomas Hart Benton's "America Today" mural rediscovered.

• Position: Museums Today - Exhibition "Thomas Hart Benton's 'America-Today' Mural Rediscovered" - Cover story

"[It] stands out ... as a singular achievement in American art of the period, one that, among other effects, served to legitimize modern mural painting as part of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Arts Project in the 1930s."

THE EXHIBITION "Thomas Hart Benton's 'America-Today' Mural Rediscovered" celebrates the gift of the artist's epic mural to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Benton (18891975), a Missouri native, painted the 10-panel mural cycle in 1930-31 for New York's New School for Social Research to adorn the boardroom of its International Style modernist building on West 12th Street. It was commissioned by the New School's director, Alvin Johnson, who had fashioned the school as a center for progressive thought and education in Greenwich Village. Depicting a sweeping panorama of American life during the 1920s, "America Today" ranks among Benton's most renowned works and as one of the most significant accomplishments in American art of the period.

"The ... presentation of Benton's great mural will shed new light on this visually and intellectually stimulating landmark in American art of the early 1930s, especially as [it is being displayed] as the artist originally intended it to be seen," says Thomas R Campbell, director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum. "... The exhibition also tells a unique story rooted in New York's own cultural history."

"The Department of Modern and Contemporary Art is thrilled to debut [this] great gift of Benton's remarkable .. . mural in the American Wing, where the artist's expansive vision of life in the United States will resonate deeply with John Vanderlyn's grand panorama, 19th-century genre painting, and Thomas Cole's philosophical landscapes, among other treasures," states Sheena Wagstaff, chair of Modern and Contemporary Art.

"The exhibition will also remind visitors that the key themes of Benton's mural--the heroic proletariat and modern industry--were greatly significant for artists in a contemporary international context, not only in the United States, but also in Mexico, and in France between the world wars."

"America Today" was Benton's first major mural commission and the most ambitious he ever executed in New York. The exhibition demonstrates how the work not only marked a turning point in Benton's career as a painter--elevating his stature among his peers and critics--but, in hindsight, stands out even more as a singular achievement in American art of the period, one that, among...