Workers Tapping the Blast Furnace
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). Among a group of drawings of the interior of a steel factory, it suggests Benton’s fascination with technology and industry. He recalled, "I got into the great steel mills, shipbuilding plants, and other industrial concerns of the country. I made hundreds of drawings—of furnaces, converters, cranes, drills, dredges and compressors, rigs and pumps, rakes, tractors, combines, and oldfashioned [sic] threshing machines." In these studies, Benton focused on the sinuous curves of the massive pipes and the dramatic atmosphere created by the molten steel.
Artwork Details
- Title: Workers Tapping the Blast Furnace
- Artist: Thomas Hart Benton (American, Neosho, Missouri 1889–1975 Kansas City, Missouri)
- Date: ca. 1930
- Medium: Pen and black ink over graphite on paper
- Dimensions: 10 5/8 × 8 1/8 in. (27 × 20.6 cm)
- Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: Gift of AXA Equitable, 2016
- Object Number: 2016.425.25
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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Thomas Hart Benton
1944
Thomas Hart Benton
1943
Thomas Hart Benton
1934
Thomas Hart Benton
1939
Thomas Hart Benton
1937
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