Untitled (Combustion Engine, Study for Instruments of Power)

Thomas Hart Benton American

Not on view

This sketch is one of dozens of drawings that Benton used to compose his mural America Today, also in the Museum’s collection (2012.478a–j). It loosely anticipates the combustion engine shown in cross section in the Instruments of Power mural panel in order to reveal the pistons firing inside. The men at the lower left and upper right working with the machine suggest connections to the panel Steel. Atypical of Benton’s studies, the contours he sketched here to account for the mural’s moldings do not conform to the final design.

Untitled (Combustion Engine, Study for Instruments of Power), Thomas Hart Benton (American, Neosho, Missouri 1889–1975 Kansas City, Missouri), Graphite on paper

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