America Today

1930–31

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 909

Offering a panorama of American life throughout the 1920s, America Today is a room-sized mural comprising ten canvas panels. Missouri native Thomas Hart Benton painted America Today to adorn a boardroom on the third floor of the New School for Social Research, a center of progressive thought and education in Greenwich Village, New York. The mural was commissioned in 1930 by the New School's director Alvin Johnson. Benton finished it very early in 1931, when the school opened a new building designed by architect Joseph Urban. Although the artist received no fee for his work on commission, he was "paid" with free eggs, the yolks from which he created the egg tempera paint.

Eight of the America Today panels depict life in different regions of the United States: the South, the Midwest, the West, and New York. In the 1920s, Benton traveled throughout these areas of the country, creating a body of studies from life, mostly in pencil, on which he based many of the details in America Today. Benton painted Cotton Pickers, Georgia (MMA 33.144.2) from the studies that he made during a trip through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia in the summer and fall of 1926. The artist returned to this same group of studies in conceiving and executing Deep South, the first panel in America Today's geographical and chronological sweep.

The largest America Today panel, Instruments of Power, is filled with enormous machines that embody modern industrial might. The last and smallest panel, Outreaching Hands, shows only hands reaching for bread and other hands holding money, allusions to the economic despair and inequity caused by the Great Depression, which began in 1929. Despite references to the Depression, Benton's mural powerfully promotes the idea of "progress," as he perceived it, predicated on modern technology. Benton's mural reveals the artist's belief that the foundational technological and mechanical strength on which progress relied was, in turn, dependent on manual and industrial labor. Consequently, bodies of large, heroic workers fill many of the mural's panels. Workers and labor fascinated many artists and photographers throughout the 1920s, including Lewis Hine (MMA 1987.1100.119) and James Lesesne Wells (MMA 1999.529.173).

In contrast to these dramatic scenes of labor and struggle, Benton depicted in City Activities with Dance Hall and City Activities with Subway popular leisure-time activities during Prohibition (1920–33), particularly dancing (to jazz music) and drinking (illegal at the time). The bawdiness of Benton's scenes of urban life connects them to the work of his friend Reginald Marsh (MMA 32.81.2), who recalled modeling for the figure of the African American construction worker in the City Building panel of America Today. Jackson Pollock, Benton's student at the Art Students League at the time, modeled for other workers, including the large figure in the panel Steel. In the 1940s, Pollock became a leader of the Abstract Expressionist movement.

Benton created America Today in a dynamic, restlessly figurative style that reflects his study of sixteenth-century European painting, especially the style known as Mannerism (see MMA 1972.171). But the exaggerated, pantomimed gestures and expressions of the figures he painted also recall early twentieth-century film, among other popular sources. Also stage-like in character is Benton's depiction of architecture, particularly the dam in Instruments of Power, a facade that suggests his response to Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico (MMA 1996.403.10). Among the mural's most distinctive features are the aluminum-leaf wood moldings, which not only frame the entire work but also create inventive spatial breaks within each large composition. When America Today was installed in the New School, these moldings echoed Art Deco details in Urban's building design.

After appearing on the cover of Time magazine in 1934, Benton left New York and settled in Kansas City, Missouri the following year. Throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s, he became closely associated with a movement known as Regionalism, which included John Steuart Curry (MMA 42.154) and Grant Wood (MMA 50.117), artists who exalted rural America and tended to regard contemporary abstract art as un-American. During this period, Benton painted July Hay (MMA 43.159.1), a work that reflects his admiration for the sixteenth-century Netherlandish artist Pieter Bruegel (MMA 19.164).

After residing for more than fifty years in the boardroom of the New School, America Today proved difficult for the school to maintain in perpetuity. In 1982, the school announced the sale of the mural, with the condition that it would not be resold outside the United States or as individual panels. But the work was a great challenge to sell as a whole, increasing the likelihood that the panels would be dispersed.

America Today was acquired by AXA (then Equitable Life) in 1984, in support of efforts on the part of then-mayor Edward I. Koch and others to keep it intact and in New York City. Two years later, after extensive cleaning and restoration, America Today was unveiled to critical acclaim in AXA's new headquarters at 787 Seventh Avenue. When the company moved its corporate headquarters again in 1996, to 1290 Avenue of the Americas, America Today was put on display in the lobby. There it remained until January 2012, when the company was asked to remove it to make way for a renovation. The removal triggered AXA's decision to place the historic work in a museum collection, and in December 2012, AXA donated the mural to The Met.

America Today, Thomas Hart Benton (American, Neosho, Missouri 1889–1975 Kansas City, Missouri), Ten panels: Egg tempera with oil glazing over Permalba on a gesso ground on linen mounted to wood panels with a honeycomb interior — This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.

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2012.478a: Instruments of Power

Edward Alden Jewell. "Gesso and True Fresco: Artists Produce Work in the Modern Spirit For the New School for Social Research." New York Times (November 23, 1930), p. 120, ill. ("City Activities with Dance Hall").

"Mural for the New School for Social Research." New York Herald Tribune (November 23, 1930), ill. p. H13 ("City Activities with Subway").

Lillian Semons. "Oils by Brooklyn-L.I. Artists Are On Display at Museum." Brooklyn Daily Times (November 23, 1930), p. 4A, ill. ("City Building").

"Modernistic Portrayals of City Life Adorn School Walls." Oakland Post-Enquirer (November 24, 1930), p. 3, ill. ("City Building" and "City Activities with Dance Hall").

"Ultra-Modernistic Art." Illustrated Daily News (Los Angeles) (November 24, 1930), p. 17, ill. ("City Activities with Subway").

"Benton in New Set of Murals Interprets the Life of His Age." Art Digest 5 (December 1, 1930), pp. 28, 36, ill. ("City Activities with Dance Hall," "City Activities with Subway," "Deep South," and "Steel").

F[lorence]. L[oeb]. K[ellogg]. "The American Scenes—Plural." Survey 65 (December 1930), pp. 271–73, ill. ("Coal," "Midwest," "City Building," "Changing West," and "Deep South").

"The Murals by Thomas Hart Benton." Pencil Points 11 (December 1930), pp. 986–87, ill. ("City Activities with Subway" and "City Activities with Dance Hall").

Helen Appleton Read. "Murals and Propaganda." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (November 23, 1930), p. B15, ill. ("City Building").

Helen Appleton Read. "Noted Artists Collaborate in New School for Social Research." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (December 28, 1930), p. B13, ill. ("Instruments of Power"), calls the reproduced panel "Power".

Louis Sherwin. "The Roving Reporter: Social Research School Facade Peers Into Architectural Future." New York Evening Post (December 30, 1930), p. 2, ill. ("City Building").

"America in Mural Painting." Sunday World Magazine (December 14, 1930), pp. 8–9, ill. (color; "City Building," "Instruments of Power," "City Acivities with Dance Hall").

Edward Alden Jewell. "American Painting." Creative Art 9 (November 1931), p. 367.

"New Social School Viewed by Public." New York Times (January 2, 1931), p. 27.

"Public Inspects Social Research School Building." New York Herald Tribune (January 2, 1931), p. 19.

"Industry." Detroit Free Press (May 10, 1931), p. 7, ill. ("City Building").

Ralph Flint. "Modernity Rules New School of Social Research." Art News 29 (January 17, 1931), pp. 3–4, ill. ("City Building").

"America Today." New Yorker (February 14, 1931), pp. 13–14.

Edward Alden Jewell. "Discreet Originality: New School for Social Research Opens Its Spacious Quarters in Twelfth Street." New York Times (January 4, 1931), p. X13, ill. ("Coal" detail).

Lloyd Goodrich. "The Murals of the New School." Arts 17 (March 1931), pp. 399–403, 442, ill. (installation photo, New School for Social Research).

Suzanne La Follette. "America in Murals." New Freeman 2 (February 18, 1931), pp. 541–43.

Thomas A. Pilkey. "The New School for Social Research, New York—A Gem of Modern Lighting." Lighting (March 1931), p. 20, ill. p. 19 (installation photo, New School for Social Research boardroom).

Rita Susswein. "The New School for Social Research." Parnassus 3 (January 1931), pp. 11–12, ill. ("City Building").

C. Adolph Glassgold. "Thomas Benton's Murals at the New York School for Social Research." Atelier 1 (April 1931), pp. 284–87, ill. ("City Activities with Subway," "Instruments of Power," "Changing West," and "Deep South").

Edmund Wilson. "Aladdin's Lecture Palace." New Republic 67 (June 10, 1931), p. 91.

Murdock Pemberton. "The Art Galleries." New Yorker (January 17, 1931), pp. 68–69.

"Art: Benton." Time 17 (January 5, 1931), p. 32, ill. ("City Activities with Dance Hall").

Jerome Klein. "New Murals by Benton and Orozco." Baltimore Sun (February 1, 1931), section 3, p. 2.

"Benton Paints Our Economocracy." Los Angeles Times (April 5, 1931), part III, p. 12, ill. ("Changing West").

Shepard Vogelgesang. "The New School for Social Research. Joseph Urban, Architect. J.H. Taylor, Contractor." Architectural Record 69 (February 1931), pp. 139, 143, ill. p. 147 (installation photo, New School for Social Research boardroom).

John Bakeless. "Machine-Made Minds: The Psychological Effects of Modern Technology." Technology Review 33 (March 1931), ill. pp. 275 ("Steel" detail), 276 ("Deep South" detail), 277 ("Coal" detail).

Thomas Craven. Men of Art. New York, 1931, p. 511, ill. between pp. 510 and 511 ("Coal" detail), calls the reproduced panel "The Miner".

Lewis Mumford. The Brown Decades: A Study of the Arts in America 1865–1895. New York, 1931, p. 241.

Helen Appleton Read. "The New School." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (January 4, 1931), p. B15.

"Why Critics Disagree Over Thomas Benton's 'Too-Realistic' Art of America in Action." Santa Cruz News (March 18, 1933), p. 11, ill. ("Coal" and "City Activities with Dance Hall").

"Art. U.S. Scene." Time 24 (December 24, 1934), p. 24.

Jacob Burck. "Benton Sees Red." Art Front 1 (April 1935), pp. 5, 8.

Thomas Hart Benton. An Artist in America. New York, 1937, pp. 247–51.

Malcolm Vaughan. "Up from Missouri." North American Review 245 (Spring 1938), pp. 84–85.

Alvin Johnson. Notes on the New School Murals. New York, [1943], pp. 1–9, 11–15, ill. ("Instruments of Power" and "City Building").

Thomas Hart Benton. Thomas H. Benton. New York, 1945, ill. n.p. ("Steel"), dates it 1931.

H. W. Janson. "Benton and Wood, Champions of Regionalism." Magazine of Art 39 (May 1946), p. 198.

"'Today' and Yesterday." Newsweek (November 25, 1957), p. 120.

Dan Sullivan. "Benton Reviews His New School Murals of the '30's." New York Times (June 5, 1968), p. 38, ill. (installation photo with the artist, New School for Social Research).

Robert G. Hoey. "Thomas Hart Benton Revisits New School." New York Villager (September 26, 1968), pp. 1, 5.

Miles A. Smith. "Thomas Benton Champions Representationalism." Cedar Rapids Gazette (October 6, 1968), p. 18C, ill. (the artist restoring the work).

Paul Berg. "A Benton Mural Restored: The Artist Repairs His 1931 Work at the New School." St. Louis Post-Dispatch (October 20, 1968), pp. 2–4, 6, ill. (details during restoration) and front cover ("City Activities with Subway" detail).

Thomas Hart Benton. An American in Art: A Professional and Technical Autobiography. Lawrence, Kan., 1969, pp. 62–68, 70, ill. pp. 96–97 ("City Activities with Dance Hall" and "City Activities with Subway"), calls the reproduced panels "Arts of Life Mural, City Activities with Dancehall" and "Arts of Life Mural, City Activities with Subway".

Editors of Time-Life Books. American Painting 1900–1970. New York, 1970, pp. 69–71, ill. ("Changing West," "Coal," "Deep South," "Steel," "City Activities with Dance Hall"), call the reproduced panels "Oil," Mining," "The Old South," "Steel," and "City Scenes".

Sam Hunter and John Jacobus. American Art of the 20th Century: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. New York, 1973, fig. 320 ("City Activities with Subway"), date it 1931.

Marshall B. Davidson. The American Heritage History of the Artists' America. New York, 1973, pp. 317–19, ill. ("Deep South"), calls the reproduced panel "The Old South".

Harry Rand. "The 1930s and Abstract Expressionism." The Genius of American Painting. Ed. John Wilmerding. New York, 1973, ill. p. 257 ("City Activities with Dance Hall").

Matthew Baigell. Thomas Hart Benton. New York, [1974], pp. 111–14, 264, pls. 77–85 (color and bw; all panels except "Outreaching Hands"), calls the reproduced panels "City Activities," "City Building," "Steel," "Mining," "Instruments of Power," "The Changing West," "Lumber, Corn, Wheat," and "The South".

Matthew Baigell. The American Scene: American Painting of the 1930's. New York, 1974, p. 91, figs. 13 ("Deep South"), 50 ("City Building"), calls the reproduced panels "The Old South" and "City Building".

Alden Whitman. "Thomas Hart Benton, Whose Paintings Reflected His Hardy Americanism, Is Dead." New York Times (January 21, 1975), p. 23, ill. ("City Activities with Subway" and "City Activities with Dance Hall").

"Thomas Hart Benton Dies; Painter of American Scene." New York Times (January 20, 1975), p. 30.

"David David, Inc." Magazine Antiques 114 (December 1978), pp. 1128–37, ill. (color; all panels except "Outreaching Hands"), calls the "Deep South" panel "The South" and the "Midwest" panel "Lumber, Corn, Wheat".

Archie Green. "Charles Louis Seeger (1886–1979)." Journal of American Folklore 92 (October–December 1979), pp. 393–94.

Stephen Polcari. "Jackson Pollock and Thomas Hart Benton." Arts Magazine 53 (March 1979), p. 121, fig. 2 ("City Activities with Subway").

Jeff Trachtman. "New School's Benton Murals Off to Wash. D.C.—Forever?" Villager 47 (January 17, 1980), ill. ("City Building") and front cover ("City Activities with Subway" detail).

Douglas Hyland in Benton's Bentons. Exh. cat., Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. Lawrence, Kan., 1980, pp. 25–27.

Olaf Hansen in Amerika: Traum und Depression 1920/40. Exh. cat., Akademie der Künste. Berlin, 1980, p. 33.

Greta Berman in Amerika: Traum und Depression 1920/40. Exh. cat., Akademie der Künste. Berlin, 1980, p. 363, ill. color pp. 353 ("Instruments of Power" detail), 354–59 (remaining panels except "Outreaching Hands"), back cover ("City Building" detail).

Victor Koshkin-Youritzin. "Thomas Hart Benton: 'Bathers' Rediscovered." Arts Magazine 54 (May 1980), p. 102, fig. 15 ("City Building").

Polly Burroughs. Thomas Hart Benton: A Portrait. Garden City, N.Y., 1981, pp. 103–6, 108.

John Opie. "Learning to Read the Pioneer Landscape: Braudel, Eliade, Turner, and Benton." Great Plains Quarterly 2 (Winter 1982), pp. 25–26, fig. 2 ("Changing West").

David W. Dunlap. "The New School Sells 'Pioneering' Benton Mural." New York Times (May 9, 1982), p. 30, ill. (deinstallation at the New School).

Karal Ann Marling. Wall-to-Wall America: A Cultural History of Post-Office Murals in the Great Depression. Minneapolis, 1982, pp. 35, 39–42, 74 n. 28, p. 132, ill. p. 36 (installation photo, New School for Social Research).

Michael Brenson. "Benton Mural May Be Split Up." New York Times (January 17, 1983), p. C11, ill. (installation photograph with the artist, New School for Social Research, 1968).

David W. Dunlap. "Equitable Purchases Benton Mural 'America Today,' Keeping It in the City." New York Times (February 14, 1984), pp. B1, B5, ill. ("Deep South," "City Activities with Subway," "Changing West").

Martin Gottlieb. "Equitable Life Will Mix Art and Commerce." New York Times (September 21, 1984), p. B1.

Margot Slade and Carlyle C. Douglas. "Ideas & Trends: Benton Mural Finds a Home." New York Times (February 19, 1984), p. E20, ill. (installation photo with the artist, New School for Social Research, 1968).

"Hidden Hazard/Hidden Treasure." New York Times (February 20, 1984), p. A18.

"Artworld: Benton Mural to Stay in NYC." Art in America 72 (April 1984), p. 256, ill. ("Instruments of Power").

"Artworld: Art to Embellish Corporate Complex." Art in America 72 (November 1984), p. 208.

Archie Green in Thomas Hart Benton: Chronicler of America's Folk Heritage. Exh. cat., Edith C. Blum Art Institute, Bard College. Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., 1984, pp. 59, 78, ill. pp. 70 ("Deep South"), 72 ("Changing West").

Alice Forman. "Benton Exhibit at Bard College." Poughkeepsie Journal (November 23, 1984), p. 32.

Valerie F. Brooks. "The Art Market: An Equitable Solution." Art News 83 (May 1984), pp. 20, 22, ill. ("City Activities with Dance Hall").

Emily Braun and Thomas Branchick. Thomas Hart Benton: The America Today Murals. Exh. cat., Williams College Museum of Art. Williamstown, Mass., 1985, pp. 66–82, figs. 1 (the artist restoring the work, 1968), 2–4, 9–14 (details).

Grace Glueck. "Art: Thomas Hart Benton Display Seeks to Revive Debate Over His Work." New York Times (March 22, 1985), p. C25.

"Artworld: Whitney West-Side." Art in America 73 (September 1985), p. 168.

Michael L. Smith in Emily Braun and Thomas Branchick. Thomas Hart Benton: The America Today Murals. Exh. cat., Williams College Museum of Art. Williamstown, Mass., 1985, pp. 8–9.

Emily Braun in Emily Braun and Thomas Branchick. Thomas Hart Benton: The America Today Murals. Exh. cat., Williams College Museum of Art. Williamstown, Mass., 1985, pp. 10–65, ill. (color) and ill. front and back covers (color), fig. 9 (installation photo, New School for Social Research boardroom, 1931).

John Daxland. "Benton Exhibit at Queens Museum." Daily News (April 28, 1985), p. W3.

Karal Ann Marling. Tom Benton and His Drawings: A Biographical Essay and a Collection of His Sketches, Studies, and Mural Cartoons. Columbia, Mo., 1985, pp. 12–14, 16, 20, 41, 49–50, 59, 68, 76–77, 86, 94, 104–6, 114, 116, 124–25, 134–35, 143–44, 162, 169, 177, 214.

William Zimmer. "'Regionalism' Examined Through Benton at Hudson Museum." New York Times (June 9, 1985), p. WC26 ("Changing West" and "Deep South").

Michael Brenson. "Museum and Corporation—A Delicate Balance." New York Times (February 23, 1986), p. H28.

James Reginato. "America Today: Equitable Rescues Benton's Masterpiece." Art & Antiques (May 1986), pp. 62–63, ill. (color; "City Activities with Dance Hall").

Mary Schmidt Campbell in Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America. Exh. cat., Studio Museum in Harlem. New York, 1987, pp. 29, 53, fig. 3 ("Deep South").

Elizabeth Broun. "Thomas Hart Benton: A Politician in Art." Smithsonian Studies in American Art 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 60, 63–65, 76 n. 17, fig. 2 ("City Activities with Subway").

Janet Marqusee. Painting America: Mural Art in the New Deal Era. Exh. cat., Midtown Galleries. New York, 1988, p. 21, reproduces an oil study for the "Midwest" panel.

Henry Adams. Thomas Hart Benton: An American Original. Exh. cat., Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. New York, 1989, pp. 156–76, 178, 180, 184–85, 206, ill. (color) and installation photo (New School for Social Research boardroom).

Verlyn Klinkenborg. "Thomas Hart Benton Came from Missouri—and He Showed 'Em." Smithsonian 20 (April 1989), pp. 87, 98, dates it 1930.

Douglas Wixson. "Thomas Hart Benton's New York Years." Thomas Hart Benton: Artist, Writer, and Intellectual. Ed. R. Douglas Hurt and Mary K. Dains. [Columbia, Mo.], 1989, p. 194.

John Garrity. "Spit and Vinegar: At His Centennial, Tom Benton Still Riles the Critics." Connoisseur 219 (April 1989), pp. 130–31, ill. (color; "City Activities with Dance Hall").

Matthew Baigell. "Thomas Hart Benton and the Left." Thomas Hart Benton: Artist, Writer, and Intellectual. Ed. R. Douglas Hurt and Mary K. Dains. [Columbia, Mo.], 1989, pp. 1, 5, figs. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ("Instruments of Power," "Deep South," "City Building," "Coal," "Changing West," and "Outreaching Hands").

Erika Doss. "The Year of Peril: Thomas Hart Benton and World War II." Thomas Hart Benton: Artist, Writer, and Intellectual. Ed. R. Douglas Hurt and Mary K. Dains. [Columbia, Mo.], 1989, p. 37.

Robert L. Gambone. "Religious Motifs in the Work of Thomas Hart Benton." Thomas Hart Benton: Artist, Writer, and Intellectual. Ed. R. Douglas Hurt and Mary K. Dains. [Columbia, Mo.], 1989, pp. 71, 77, 88, fig. 7 ("City Activities with Subway").

Karal Ann Marling. "Thomas Hart Benton's Epic of the Usable Past." Thomas Hart Benton: Artist, Writer, and Intellectual. Ed. R. Douglas Hurt and Mary K. Dains. [Columbia, Mo.], 1989, pp. 125, 136 n. 20.

John Gladstone. "The Romance of the Iron Horse." Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts 15 (Winter–Spring 1990), pp. 30, 36, 37 nn. 24, 25, fig. 23 (color; "Instruments of Power," image reversed).

Stephen Polcari. Abstract Expressionism and the Modern Experience. Cambridge, 1991, pp. 12, 14, fig. 6 ("City Activities with Subway," erroneously captioned as "City Activities with Dance Hall").

Erika Doss. Benton, Pollock, and the Politics of Modernism: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism. Chicago, 1991, pp. 68–88, 91–92, 96, 139 nn. 4, 5, p. 140 n. 15, pp. 162, 267, 348, 361 n. 40, fig. 2.1 (installation photo, New School for Social Research boardroom), figs. 2.2–2.11(ten panels), and ill. title page ("City Building").

Douglas Dreishpoon. Benton's America: Works on Paper and Selected Paintings. Exh. cat., Hirschl & Adler Galleries. New York, 1991, pp. 54, 56.

Diane Waldman. Roy Lichtenstein. Exh. cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. New York, 1993, p. 351.

Carol Vogel. "Inside Art: Till Death Do Us Part." New York Times (September 22, 1995), p. C26, ill. ("City Activities with Subway").

Carter Ratcliff. The Fate of a Gesture: Jackson Pollock and Postwar American Art. New York, 1996, pp. 15, 20, 22, dates it 1930.

James M. Dennis. Renegade Regionalists: The Modern Independence of Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry. Madison, Wisc., 1998, pp. 22, 121, 123, 243, figs. 9 ("City Activities with Dance Hall"), 10 ("City Building"), 57 ("City Activities with Subway"), 150 ("Instruments of Power").

Henry Adams. "The Modern Language of Mural Painting." American Artist 62 (December 1998), p. 45, ill. p. 49 (color; "City Building" and "Midwest," images reversed).

Johanna Drucker. "Who's Afraid of Visual Culture?" Art Journal 58 (Winter 1999), p. 40, ill. p. 36 (color; "City Activities with Subway".

Matthew Baigell. Artist and Identity in Twentieth-Century America. New York, 2001, pp. 117–18, 120–22, figs. 26, 28 ("Instruments of Power" and "Coal") [reprints Ref. Baigell 1989] .

Erika Doss. Twentieth-Century American Art. Oxford, 2002, p. 110, fig. 57 (color; "City Building").

Erika Doss. "Sharrer's 'Tribute to the American Working People': Issues of Labor and Leisure in Post-World War II American Art." American Art 16 (Fall 2002), p. 73, fig. 15 ("Steel").

Jadviga M. da Costa Nunes. "Pennsylvania's Anthracite Mines and Miners: A Portrait of the Industry in America [sic] Art, c. 1860–1940." Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology 28, no. 1 (2002), pp. 22–23, 31 n. 41.

Henry Adams. "Painter." American Heritage 56 (October 2005), p. 74.

Charles C. Eldredge. John Steuart Curry's "Hoover and the Flood": Painting Modern History. Chapel Hill, 2007, p. 60, fig. 43 ("City Activities with Dance Hall").

Leo G. Mazow. "Regionalist Radio: Thomas Hart Benton on 'Art for Your Sake'." Art Bulletin 90 (March 2008), p. 103, fig. 1 ("Instruments of Power").

Austen Barron Bailly. "Art for America: Race in Thomas Hart Benton's Murals, 1919–1936." Indiana Magazine of History 105 (June 2009), p. 151 n. 3, pp. 158–59, 163, dates it 1929–30.

Kathryn Lofton and Matthew Pratt Guterl. "Introduction: The Benton Murals of Indiana." Indiana Magazine of History 105 (June 2009), p. 123.

Joy S. Kasson. "Looking Forward/Looking Backward: Benton's Indiana Murals and the Chicago World's Fair." Indiana Magazine of History 105 (June 2009), pp. 144–45, dates it 1930.

Henry Adams. Tom and Jack: The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock. New York, 2009, pp. 148–55, 306, ill. between pp. 184 and 185 (color; "Coal" and "Instruments of Power") and front endpapers (color; "Coal" detail).

Jacqueline Francis. "Bearden's Hands." Romare Bearden, American Modernist. Ed. Ruth Fine and Jacqueline Francis. Washington, D.C., 2011, p. 128, fig. 10 ("City Activities with Subway"), dates it 1930.

Carol Vogel. "Thomas Hart Benton Masterwork Goes to Met." New York Times (December 12, 2012), pp. C1, C7, ill. (color; "City Activities with Subway" and "Deep South").

Justin Wolff. Thomas Hart Benton: A Life. New York, 2012, pp. 6, 202–7, 212, 223, 329, ill. between pp. 210 and 211 (color; "City Activities with Subway"), dates it 1930.

Sally Bick. "In the Tradition of Dissent: Music at the New School for Social Research, 1926–33." Journal of the American Musicological Society 66 (Spring 2013), p. 165 n. 143.

Michael Kammen. "Up Against the Wall: Madcap Missouri Muralist." Reviews in American History 41 (June 2013), p. 342 n. 5.

Randall Griffey in "Recent Acquisitions. A Selection: 2012–2014." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 72 (Fall 2014), p. 74, ill. (color; "Instruments of Power" and "City Activities with Subway" [detail]).

Karen Rosenberg. "Brother, Can You Spare a Wall?" New York Times (October 3, 2014), pp. C21, C24, ill. (color; "Coal," erroneously captioned as "CIty Building"; overall installation photo, The Met).

"Current and Coming: Thomas Hart Benton's 'America Today' at the Met." Magazine Antiques 181 (September/October 2014), pp. 26–27, ill. (color; "City Activities with Dance Hall," "Changing West," "Outreaching Hands," "Deep South," and "City Building").

Mario Naves. "Exhibition Note: 'Thomas Hart Benton's "America Today" Mural Rediscovered.' The Metropolitan Museum of Art." New Criterion 33 (November 2014), pp. 43–45.

John Dorfman. "Wall Power: Thomas Hart Benton's 'America Today' Mural Is Unveiled at The Met." Art & Antiques 37 (November 2014), pp. 58–62, ill. (color; "City Activities with Dance Hall," "Steel," "City Activities with Subway," and "Instruments of Power"), and ill. p. 26 (color detail "City Activities with Subway").

"Thomas Hart Benton's 'America Today' Mural Rediscovered." American Art Review 26 (November–December 2014), pp. 88–93, ill. (color; "City Activities with Subway," "Deep South," "Changing West," "City Activities with Dance Hall," "Midwest," "Instruments of Power," and "Coal").

Randall R. Griffey and Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser in "Thomas Hart Benton's 'America Today'." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 72 (Winter 2015), pp. 7–21, ill. (color, overall and details; installation photo, The Met), ill. front and back covers, p. 4 (color details), figs. 15 (infrared reflectogram, detail), 16 (installation photo, New School boardroom, 1931), 17 (installation photo, AXA public lobby, 1986).

Randall R. Griffey in "Thomas Hart Benton's 'America Today'." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 72 (Winter 2015), pp. 22–25, 44, ill. color pp. 22–24 ("Instruments of Power," overall and detail), 44 ("Outreaching Hands").

Stephanie L. Herdrich in "Thomas Hart Benton's 'America Today'." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 72 (Winter 2015), pp. 26–37, ill. (color, "Deep South," "Midwest," "Changing West," "Coal," "Steel," and "City Building").

Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser in "Thomas Hart Benton's 'America Today'." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 72 (Winter 2015), pp. 38–43, ill. (color; "City Activities with Subway," "City Activities with Dance Hall").

Shawn Digney-Peer with Cynthia Moyer in "Thomas Hart Benton's 'America Today'." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 72 (Winter 2015), pp. 45–47, ill. (color; "City Activities with Dance Hall" [detail]), figs. 41 (Benton restoring "America Today," 1968), 42 (details of paint film), 43–45 (infrared reflectograms).

Austen Barron Bailly in American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood. Ed. Austen Barron Bailly. Exh. cat., Peabody Essex Museum. Salem, 2015, p. 37, fig. 7 (color; "Changing West").

Leo G. Mazow in American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood. Ed. Austen Barron Bailly. Exh. cat., Peabody Essex Museum. Salem, 2015, p. 118.

Jake Milgram Wien in American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood. Ed. Austen Barron Bailly. Exh. cat., Peabody Essex Museum. Salem, 2015, pp. 137, 142.

Greil Marcus in American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood. Ed. Austen Barron Bailly. Exh. cat., Peabody Essex Museum. Salem, 2015, p. 183.

Sarah N. Chasse in American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood. Ed. Austen Barron Bailly. Exh. cat., Peabody Essex Museum. Salem, 2015, p. 194, ill. (color; "City Activities with Dance Hall").

Randy Kennedy. "When Art's Muse Worked Up a Sweat." New York Times (September 4, 2015), p. C26, ill. (detail, installation photo, The Met).

Roberta Smith. "A Trans-Atlantic View of Modernism." New York Times (January 9, 2015), p. C30.

Henry Adams. Thomas Hart Benton: Discoveries and Interpretations. Columbia, Mo., 2015, pp. 61–62, 91–92, 95, 99, 105, 125, 131, 134, 165, 168, 194, 196, 213, 229–30, 234, 250, dates it 1930.

Judith A. Barter in America after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s. Ed. Judith A. Barter. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, 2016, pp. 31, 174–75, fig. 2 (color; "Midwest").

Annelise K. Madsen in America after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s. Ed. Judith A. Barter. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, 2016, p. 93; fig. 4 (color, "City Building").

Kathryn Calley Galitz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Masterpiece Paintings. New York, 2016, p. 525, ill. (color, installation photo, The Met), colorpl. 450 ("Instruments of Power," "City Activities with Subway," and "Steel" [detail]).

Anna Indych-López in Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910–1950. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2016, p. 343, fig. 10.3 (color; "City Activities with Dance Hall").

Phoebe Wolfskill. Archibald Motley Jr. and Racial Reinvention: The Old Negro in New Negro Art. Urbana, Ill., 2017, pp. 92–95, fig. 14 ("City Activities with Subway").

Randall R. Griffey in My Soul Has Grown Deep: Black Art from the American South. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2018, p. 29, fig. 16 (color; "Deep South").

Edward J. Sullivan. Making the Americas Modern: Hemispheric Art, 1910–1960. London, 2018, pp. 83–84, 318 n. 37, fig. 2.14 (color; "Instruments of Power").

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York, 2019, p. 417, ill. (color; "City Activities with Dance Hall").

Max Hollein. Modern and Contemporary Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2019, ill. pp. 56–57 (color, "Steel" and "City Activities with Dance Hall" [detail]).

Jeffrey Richmond-Moll. "Roots/Routes: Religion and Modern Mobility in American Art, 1900–1935." PhD diss., University of Delaware, 2019, pp. 369–70.

Holland Cotter. "Various, Humane, Political." I Stand in My Place with My Own Day Here: Site-Specific Art at The New School. Ed. Frances Richard. 2019, pp. 17–18.

Julia L. Foulkes. "Schooled in the New: The Arts as Social Research." I Stand in My Place with My Own Day Here: Site-Specific Art at The New School. Ed. Frances Richard. New York, 2019, pp. 22–23.

Reinhold Martin. "Living and Learning from the University Center to 66 West 12th Street; or, Arendt in Mar-a-Lago." I Stand in My Place with My Own Day Here: Site-Specific Art at The New School. Ed. Frances Richard. New York, 2019, ill. p. 29 (installation photo, New School boardroom, ca. 1931).

Silvia Rocciolo et al. "Histories of the Commissions." I Stand in My Place with My Own Day Here: Site-Specific Art at The New School. Ed. Frances Richard. New York, 2019, pp. 268–69, ill. pp. 34–41 (color), 268 (installation photo, New School, 1950s), 269 (the artist restoring the work, 1968).

Randall Griffey. "From The New School to The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Odyssey of Thomas Hart Benton's 'America Today'." I Stand in My Place with My Own Day Here: Site-Specific Art at The New School. Ed. Frances Richard. New York, 2019, pp. 43–46.

Luc Sante. "The Ghost of Progress Past." I Stand in My Place with My Own Day Here: Site-Specific Art at The New School. Ed. Frances Richard. New York, 2019, pp. 47–49, ill. (installation photo, New School, 1950s).

Mira Schor. "Paid in Eggs." I Stand in My Place with My Own Day Here: Site-Specific Art at The New School. Ed. Frances Richard. New York, 2019, pp. 50–53, ill. (color; "City Activities with Dance Hall" [detail]).

Michele Greet. "A Celebration of Dance." I Stand in My Place with My Own Day Here: Site-Specific Art at The New School. Ed. Frances Richard. New York, 2019, pp. 82–83.

Jasmine Rault. "New School Desires: 'Poised Precisely Between Fantasy and Reality'." I Stand in My Place with My Own Day Here: Site-Specific Art at The New School. Ed. Frances Richard. New York, 2019, p. 88.

Philip J. Deloria. Becoming Mary Sully: Toward an American Indian Abstract. Seattle, 2019, p. 180, fig. 4.15 (color; "City Building"), calls it "America Today (Building the City)" and dates it 1931.

Barbara Haskell in Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945. Ed. Barbara Haskell. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 2020, pp. 19–20, colorpl. 63 ("Steel").

Renato González Mello in Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945. Ed. Barbara Haskell. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 2020, p. 178.

Mark A. Castro in Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945. Ed. Barbara Haskell. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 2020, p. 185, fig. 5 (color; "City Building").

Claire Ittner. "Jacob Lawrence's Work Theme, 1945–46." Metropolitan Museum Journal 57 (2022), p. 114, fig. 10 (color; "City Building").

Lauren Kroiz. Thomas Hart Benton: Where Does the West Begin? Exh. cat., Schoelkopf Gallery. New York, 2024, p. 17, fig. 13 (color; "Changing West").

Joanne Snrech and Orane Stalpers in Jackson Pollock: The Early Years, 1934–1947. Exh. cat., Musée National Picasso-Paris. Paris, 2024, p. 170.

Joanne Snrech in Jackson Pollock: The Early Years, 1934–1947. Exh. cat., Musée National Picasso-Paris. Paris, 2024, p. 13.