AdvmTisiNq’s USEof AMERiCAN ARTiN ThE 1930s ANd 40s

During the 1930s and 40s American artists and influences of European cubism on domestic art, and art gallery directors, movie tycoons, magazine advocating the formation of a vital national art editors and ad-men united in an effort to manipulate based on purely American life, experiences and art for commercial advantage. The recitation of values. Nowadays, we tend to assume that popular American artists employed as commercial Regionalist pictures show things as they really were copyists during the depression era is impressive: in the 1930s and 40s. But, Wood‘s carefully ordered painter Thomas Hart Benton was hired by the Iowa landscapes depict a mechanized utopian motion picture industry repeatedly and worked as a farmscape of the future, not the dustbowl nightmares publicist for films ranging from The Grapes of Wrath of rural America in the 1920s and 30s.:’ And Benton’s to Swamp Water; artists Benton and Grant Wood intent, muscle-bound Hercules are not laboring in the were part of promotion for The Long Voyage Home, a 1930, when the jobless economy was at a standstill, 1940 film based on four Eugene O’Neill plays; Benton but sometime in the future-beyond the depression.4 and a variety of other American artists were It was this forecasting of the American utopia of the commissioned by Life magazine as political and future, and the aspiration to cultural democracy and social commentators. The American Tobacco nativism, which led to the popularity of Regionalism. Company even hired popular artists to paint cheery Helped along by chauvinistic, red-blooded publicity pictures of tobacco country for the Company’s ballyhoo on the part of its creators, Regionalism publicity for Lucky Strike cigarettes. This provided a panacea to depression apprehensions deployment of fine or elite art by the corporate world through a style which, paradoxically, appeared real, during the 1930s and 40s is well worth serious factual and tangible. examination and analysis.’ A popular style of Time magazine was not the only culture broker American art called Regionalism was molded into a in the 30s to recognize the potential in the popular primary mode of commercial advertising during appeal of Regionalism. In 1934 a young public these decades. Why Regionalism was deemed relations agent named Reeves Lewenthal opened the especially advantageous for wooing public goodwill first art agency-the Associated American Artists- and increasing corporate profits provides insight which catered specifically to the promotion of into the cultural climate of depression era America. Regionalism. Drawing on experience as a publicist In 1934 Time coined the phrase “regional art” in for 35 arts organizations, Lewenthal reasoned that their cover story on Thomas Hart Benton, thus the mass regard for Regionalism could be capitalized paying homage to, and further popularizing an upon, if artists could be urged to aim for sheer profit, artistic style in vogue since the 1920~.~The art of over and above purer interests in cultural Regionalism involves the seemingly realistic commentary and aesthetic creativity. Like industry, portrayal of “things American”-from the stern the art world needed to be professionalized and farming couple of Grant Wood’s American Gothic modernized; it needed an efficient system of (1930), to the country christening depicted in John production and distribution. Lewenthal’s sensibility Steuart Curry’s Baptism in Kansas (1928), and the paralleled, and perhaps grew out of, corporate tactics American factory workers toiling in Thomas Hart and theories developed in the 1920s and 30s. As Benton’s murals for the New School of Social Lewenthal said, “The gallery system is doomed. The Research (1930-1931).Much of the immense popular rich collector class is dying out. American art ought appeal of Regionalism stemmed from the fact that to be handled like any other American business.”s So Regionalist artists relied on familiar, type-cast he hired 26 artists, including Benton, Curry and images of America, and painted these country scenes Wood, and sold their commissioned etchings for only and ordinary folk in such an energetically five dollars apiece, distributing them in department rpmbunctious manner that they spilled out from the stores and by direct mail order.6 This merger of confines of the canvas to reach out and grab the business world procedure and art world aesthetics American viewing public-for whom the pictures was helped along by the mass consumption hysteria were painted. As the depression began, Americans of the American public, whose desires were hardly were quite familiar with the art of Benton, Curry and dampened by the depression. Lewenthal catered to Wood, the so-called “triumvirate” of Regionalism, consumerism by declaring that art was a commodity especially since all three artists waged well- for everyone, and by merchandising themes which publicized verbal campaigns publicly decrying the appealed to everyone. Such was Regionalism.

10 11 Advertisements for the Associated American Artists, 25 years of movie watching, wanted in a magazine: placed in magazines like Time and Life,as well as art lots of pictures. Life provided more pictures-from periodicals, boasted: “This is the moment you have photographs to paintings-than any other magazine been waiting for! Through this vital new Art Project of the day and in the process became a major you can now get museum-perfect Originals, promoter of American art. One of Life’s editors, personally signed by the artists.. . .”7 Lewenthal also Daniel Longwell, wrote in 1942: “Man’s gift-his capitalized on the new psychological approach used ability to depict things-has tended to be the in 1930s advertising techniques by appealing to exclusive gift of a few and the exclusive property of a socia! ambitions with copy which read, “the artist few. If Life has tended to a greaterdemocratization of achieves his finest expression [and] attains a wider the artist, tended to make their work shared by as market, only when every cultured person can afford a many as possible, then it has accomplished its genuine original.”x In other words, the consumer’s fundamental philosophy.”ll The editors of Life social status was limited, and the continuation of discerned the accessibility of Regionalism, and with American art was doomed, unless these five dollar one eye on cultural betterment and the other on prints were purchased. The elite values normally profit, they fostered its popular appeal with their restricted to the connoisseur were therefore available frequent coverage of Regionalist art and artists. to everybody, at five dollars a print. Lewenthal’s Indeed, the first issue of Life, November 23, 1936, business acumen paid off: by 1941 the Associated devoted four pages to the Kansas flavored American Artists earned more than $500,000 a year; Regionalism of John Steuart Curry. Life also American artists were surviving the depression with commissioned prominent artists as reporters or ample income; and Regionalism was still at the illustrators of contemporary cultural foibles. forefront as a popular cultural style.9 In July of 1937 Life hired Thomas Hart Benton to While selling Regionalist art to middle America, sketch union autoworkers in Flint, Michigan. Lewenthal began promoting it to business leaders. Hearing rumors of the rise of communist and fascist During the 1930s the image of American business sympathies among United Auto Worker members, was at its nadir, suffering from a deep lack of public Life picked Benton as their reporter, claiming he was, trust. Businessmen felt an urgent need to woo back “the ablest living painter of the American Scene,” the confidence of Americans who blamed them for and “a serious student of that scene.”I2 The situation the depression, and Lewenthal convinced them they in Michigan had been serious in January and could do it by becoming industrial Medicis. February of that year, when sit-down strikers Industrial patronage of the arts is essentially occupied a General Motors plant for 44 days.]’$ motivated by profit, and profits begin with public Finally, after GM surrendered to union demands, the goodwill. In the 1930s and 40s public goodwill toward violence ended. But the dramatic jump in UAW business was tied to promotion of an art which membership, from 30,000 to 400,000 in a single year, Americans trusted and embraced: the familiar and the subsequent transfer of power to the workers, utopian visions of Regionalism. Many corporate art roused Henry Luce’s rabid anti-red sentiments.14 collections, such as IBM’s down-home grass-roots Although generally sympathetic to unions, Benton American art collection, were started in the 1930s too was by 1937 openly disdainful of red politicking, because of their popular appeal and ultimate and was easily persuaded to keep his account of the promotion of public benevolence toward the potential “revolution in Michigan” light-hearted.’ corporate community, but Reeves Lewenthal In the short snappy text accompanying the convinced industry leaders of the cash rewards of seventeen drawings Benton sketched for the promoting American art via advertising. His move to assignment Life readers were informed: merge art and industry during the depression era created a new sales market for his roster of Assured by conservatives that they would see a real Regionalist artists. In 1938 the Associated American “communist outing” Benton and guide proceeded next day Artists opened an “Art for Advertising Department” to a big U.A.W. picnic in Flint Park. No red flags were in and declared: “For a select group of industrial clients evidence, but the investigators did see “communists” give a Fascist salute in response to a speaker’s query. They also we have made our experience and the vast resources saw picknickers crowding around the game concessions; of our creative staff available in bringing the children lining up at the gate of the baseball diamond; a stimulation and beauty of great art into the practical unionist being publicly married by a Tennessee hillbilly everyday world of ad~ertising.”]~Selling five dollar preacher; assorted merrymakers just eating and loafing.’” prints to a new middle class audience began Lewenthal’s crusade. Buying art is one thing, of course; having it made to order for commercial or The satirical tone of the text was matched by that of reportorial ends is quite another. Benton’s drawings. Commenting thirty years after Regionalism’s first and foremost business this particular Life assignment Benton dryly patron was Life magazine. From its inception in remarked, “I found in Michigan neither talk nor 1936, Life was immediately successful, because it desire for revolution-only an itch for more correctly catered to what the American public, fed on money.”l7 His disparagingly caricatured views of 12 JOURNAL Of AM€RiCAN CdTURE

this union picnic were quickly published by Life- seen in Benton’s careful delineation of machinery. which used them to convey their scorn for unionizing Hollywood‘s focus pinpoints the reality of the and communism. Thus, Benton’s satirical drawings, American film industry and its mythic extension sketched in the popular cartoonish style of into American life. Regionalism, helped to dissuade Americans from While in Hollywood Benton worked at Twentieth communist sympathies, just as Henry Luce had Century Fox-for which he had painted movie anticipated. backdrops some twenty years earlier.’g At the studio Following Benton’s succes in Michigan, Life he observed the making of In Old Chicago, whose dispatched him to California, where he was to paint a spectacular fire appears in technicolor glory at the composite picture of the movie industry and to center of Benton’s painting.20Hollywoodis as action- illustrate an article on Hollywood. The movie packed and involving as the calculated pace of many industry was encountering the same unionization 30s films. In a format borrowed from his murals, or problems as the auto industry in 1937 and Benton’s from the films themselves, we see a dynamic resultant painting, entitled Hollywood, is full of multiplicity of montaged scenes which capture the movieland’s anonymous dissatisfied workers-all very essence of Hollywood. Using a cast of almost potential union members.18 (Fig. 1) The painting fifty actors, directors and technicians Benton shows depicts other concerns of the 1930s as well: its raging how movies were made and who made them. fire reads as the conflagration of the depression; the Although the painting is colorful and energetic, quasi-nude woman in the picture’s center represents it was declared unfit for Life; the movie article was starlet as sex goddess in American culture; the role of scrapped and replaced with a piece on starlets. The modern technology in reshaping American life is reasons for Benton’s sudden disfavor are multiple.

Figure 1. Hollywood, 1937. Thomas Hart Benton. Oil and tempera on canvas mounted on panel, 53 112 x 8lCJc).Collection William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. BORROWiNq REqiONALiSM 13 He was told he did not beat the press on the release of this art-appreciation and make it work for your the Fox movie In Old Chicago, and so his picture was playdate of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’.”2j Hence a old hat. But most important, Benton’s visions of politically explosive topic was made more acceptable Hollywood differed widely from Henry Luce’s, by associating it with the creditable style of Darryl Zanuck‘s, and that of the American public. Regionalist art. Benton perceived the destructive elements at work Benton prepared six lithographs for The Grapes within movie culture. His Hollywood is on fire. It is of Wrath, which were reproduced in the movie peopled with faceless workers whose malcontent program and in newspaper ads. (Fig. 2) In terms of hints that, contrary to popular myth, movieland is their effectiveness as advertising, Benton’s sketches not a mecca of instant fame and riches.2’ Instead, were simultaneously successes and failures. His Benton suggests, the movie industry is obsessed with reliance on Regionalism, with its dramatic color sex and spectacle and the fast-paced production of contrasts and human pathos, aided Americans lucrative products. Writing in 1938to editor Longwell preconditioned to the style to perceive the plight of at Life Benton remarked “The young lady who the country’s migrants, albeit as art, not as dire fact. occupies the center of the panel is more symbolical Benton’s lithographs were adapted from earlier than an actual movie figure. I wanted to give the idea drawings he had made of Okies, which he altered to that the machinery of the industry, cameras, conform to studio stills of the players and scenes in carpenters, big generators, high voltage wires, etc., is the film.Z6 His sentimental and idealized drawings of directed mainly toward what young ladies have the movie stars-chosen for their similarity to real under their clothes. So I took the clothes off but added Okies, thus “migrant types”-were easily a few little bits for the post office.”zp Benton’s focus understood by an American audience already on movie unionists and a racy nameless blonde, familiar through the pages of Life with what real rather than on specific glamorous Hollywood stars, Okie migrants looked like.Z7 Typical examples of was considered inappropriate for Life, which Regionalist art, Benton’s artistic Okies were cleaner depended upon motion picture advertising and could and less desperate looking than real migrants, and not afford to slight one of its better clients. The thus immensely more appealing to movie audiences magazine readily accepted Benton’s disdainful bred on Hollywood’s deliberate fictionalization of approach to communism in Michigan, but when he American realities. However, jealousy from Fox’s took a similar critical stance in Hollywood, using the own art staff, and their unionization, prevented familiar popular style of Regionalism, Life reneged Benton’s art from being fully utilized. A second ad on its support of Regionalist opinion making. campaign, derived from in-house ad copy, was used Even though Life rejected his painting, Benton’s more often than Benton’s. And studio chief Darryl movie venture turned out well; he made contacts with Zanuck‘s less than appreciative comments on a score of Hollywood art patrons from Edward G. Benton’s art, which ranged from “Who the hell did Robinson to Mervyn LeRoy. When Benton’s agent, this? It’s awful!” to “Why is everything leaning? Reeves Lewenthal, heard of movieland’s interest in People don’t look that way,” did not aid in successful the arts, he decided to capitalize on that patronage. and lasting detente between the artists’ studio and In 1939 Lewenthal read in Variety that Twentieth the Hollywood studio.28 Century Fox had bought the film rights to John The most elaborate use of art for advertising by Steinbeck’s bestseller The Grapes of Wrath.23He was the movie industry occurred in May of 1940, when intrigued by the advertising possibilities for the film, producer Walter Wanger hired nine of America’s especially as its Americana theme, the star Young leading artists, including Benton and Grant Wood, to Mr. Lincoln himself-Henry Fonda, and its direction promote the film The Long Voyage Home.29 Wanger by the 30s foremost patriot, John Ford, fairly begged had proved himself a successful and canny purveyor for a promotional tie-in with one of America’s of American Scene themes with his previous popular Regionalist artists. Lewenthal knew that productions of You Only Live Once (1937) and Fox, like other major studios, was suffering from Stagecoach (1939).He was one of Hollywood’s more declining revenues. He also knew that the screen daring figures in the 1930s because he took frequent version of Steinbeck‘s controversial novel-banned risks, from producing the Marx Brothers’ first film in many places-would need to be promoted very Cocoanuts in 1929 to handling the theme of political care full^.?^ He persuaded Harry Brand, Fox’s chief dictatorship in the 1933 movie Gabriel Over the publicist, and Darryl Zanuck that only an ad White House. Although American classics such as campaign by America’s most popular artist- Little Women and Tom Sawyer had been screened Thomas Hart Benton-would effectively deter profitably, Wanger knew the high-brow flavor of potential public hostility toward the movie and Eugene O’Neill’s contemporary plays would be hard increase its chance for profit. The studio quickly for American mass audiences to stomach. To offset exploited their new patronage of the arts in ads for anticipated audience reaction to The Long Voyage the movie which noted “The nation is excited about Home as intellectually pretentious, or “difficult”- works of art. The Benton art provides you with an and thus, not worth seeing-Wanger arranged an exceptional, timely opportunity to ride the crest of expensive promotion of the movie using Regionalist 14 JOURNAL Of AMERiCAN CdTURE

Troubled mother of a large family of migrant Okla- her harassed family together, to buy for $10 the flimsy homa sharecroppers, this woman was found by Author shack before which she posed. She is the perfect pro- Steinbeck and Photographer Bristol in a California totype of Ma Joad, the heroic mother in The Grapes fruit-pickers’ camp. Her great yearning was to keep of Wrath, acted in the movie by Jane Darwell (above).

Fig. 2 The Grapes of Wrath.Thomas Hart Benton lithograph, Ma Joad, 1939.6 3/4 x 6 3/4”, edition of 25 (right). Life magazine comparison of photographs of migrants juxtaposed with movie still of Jane Darwell as Ma Joad in movie The Grapes of Wrath. See “Speaking of Pictures” section, Life, Feb. 19,1940, pp. 10- 11 (above). BORROWiNc; RE@ONAkM 15 art to popularize it, and thereby give it an apple pie Hollywood‘s new mood, and the art experiment was middle-brow or even low-brow cachet. For two weeks never repeated in movieland. Of course the fact that the artists had access to all the sets during filming, the movie failed to make money, despite its and were given complete freedom in their choice of widespread critical acclaim, also suggested to subject matter to paint. The eleven resulting Hollywood businessmen that art in movie canvases were then displayed at the Academy of advertising was hardly profitable, however Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, uplifting.3:’ In fact, though popular, Regionalist art were on view at the movie’s premiere in New York, was unable to take the sting off a new avant-garde and eventually toured America’s leading museums, spirit abroad in Hollywood. where they were seen by thousands. An exhibition The most successful ad campaign using catalogue accompanying the paintings boasted: Regionalist art occurred during World War 11, when “This experiment in the alliance of the motion the American Tobacco Company hired 17 artists to picture industry with the art of painting may well be promote Lucky Strike cigarettes. President George the forerunner of a whole new field of interest and Washington Hill, the Henry Ford of the tobacco income for the American artist. It is hoped that the world, was responsible for the company’s unbroken paintings will serve the film well. They will profit records, which placed Luckies as the second emphasize its dramatic values, and encourage the most popular cigarette in 1940, right behind Camels. public to search the film from an entirely new angle, His personal theory that every commercial product from the artists’ angle. . . .”N should be promoted on the basis of some distinctive Indeed, the “artists’ angle” on the film was quality led to the adoption of the Lucky slogans, “It’s completely different from the film itself. The artists toasted,” and “L.S.M.F.T.: Lucky Strike Means Fine focused on the action scenes-the sprawling with Tobacco.”:j4 In 1941 the American Tobacco Company bumboat women, the bar brawls, the air raids and encountered serious public confidence problems torpedo battles. The artists showed the type of action when, along with the makers of Camels and and frivolity the moviegoer had grown accustomed to Chestefields, it was convicted by the Department of seeing in 30s movies. But the film itself is dark and Justice of price fixing and conspiring to maintain a moody, more like The Longest Day than The Dirty tobacco trust.:’s President Hill worried that anti-trust Dozen. There is the foreboding presence of death, litigation might affect his company’s profits, at a paralleled and precipitated by America’s impending time when considerable profits were to be made. He descent into World War 11. Cinematographer Gregg was well aware that by the end of World War I Toland broods on foggy expressionistic shots. The cigarette smoking had risen more than 200(%and that film ends by foreshadowing death at sea for the men already, in 1941, wartime tensions had increased aboard the ship Glencairn.:3‘Although heavily and cigarette consumption by 13%.:j6To snare the trust of uniquely promoted, The Long Voyage Home bombed American smokers, and to insure continued wartime at the box office, perhaps because, as Americans profits, Hill commissioned various Regionalist were preparing for real war, they wanted uplifting artists and used their paintings of tobacco country gungho war movies, not those suggestive of a war-is- atmosphere in a protracted Luckies campaign. hell mentality. The buoyant, action-packed tone of Although other cigarette manufacturers capitalized the Regionalist paintings appealed to the masses; the on the war and used a military theme in promotion, gloomy overtones of the screen version of Eugene Hill was careful to keep wartime imagery out of these O’Neill’s plays did not. ads for Lucky Strike.:$7Perhaps he wanted to ready The style of the eleven canvases gave the his product for post-war consumption, perhaps he fatalism of The Long Voyage Home a readable and astutely perceived profits to be made by showing the even enjoyable tenor, but also showed that these safe, homebound dreamland of the Regionalists, but Regionalist artists really did not mesh with he also recognized the appeal of optimistic, down- Hollywood, stylistically or culturally. By the early home Regionalist art, whose very popularity was 1940s Hollywood had begun to lose its fervent used to regain folksy credibility and sell more optimism about America and itself. In about 1941 a cigarettes. new attitude of pessimism in Hollywood was made The paintings, featured as ads in magazines like evident in the emergence of a new movie genre-film Time, Life and Newsweek, promote tobacco country noir. Soon the angular darkness of noir films like as an agricultural paradise, full of grinning farmers The Maltese Falcon (1941) and This Gun for Hire and clean ordered farms. There is the complete (1942) would be common, replacing the cheery spirit absence of any Tobacco Road vulgarity, or any hint of 30s films such as It Happened One Night (1934) of tobacco-trust wrongdoing. The Regionalist and Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) with a cynicism campaign was widely successful. To its longevity can reflecting nascent cultural anxiety. be attributed Lucky Strike becoming America’s most The Long Voyage Home can be correctly popular cigarette in 1943, finally surpassing ascertained as an early example of the new film noir Camels.38 But the paintings only gave such a sensibility. The active optimism of Benton’s and glowing account of tobacco country because the Wood’s regionally flavored art did not mesh with artists were told to do so, not because they saw on JOURNA~ Of AMERiCAN CU~URE these southern farms a rural utopia. artists received when commissioned by commerce The artistic rules set down by the American made them reluctant to discern changes in America’s Tobacco Company are especially obvious in the cultural thinking and to evolve, as even Hollywood absence of black farmers in the ads. Thomas Hart was doing with the new genre of film noir. Benton’s original design showed the black tobacco The commercial application of Regionalism workers of Southern Georgia. When he showed it to eventually rendered it hackneyed and one- the Company’s advertising staff he encountered dimensional, as art and commercial advertising. By blank horror. “Don’t you know,” they said, “You the mid-1940s Regionalism had lost its zip, cannot show Negroes doing what looks like slave aesthetically and culturally, and was replaced by the work. . . . The Negro reform institutions would creepy charm of Surrealism. Interestingly, the form boycott our products and cost us millions.. . . They of Surrealism is similar to that of Regionalism. Both want the Negro shown as a respectable well-dressed show the apparently real. The content of Surrealism, member of society [and] if we did this the whole of the however, as seen in Salvador Dali’s paintings, better white South would boycott us. So the only thing to do reflected the altered cultural milieu of the mid-1940s is to avoid the represention of Negroes in the tobacco than Regionalism did.41Americans were no longer business.” Benton tried another painting, without buying the Regionalists’ message of a hopeful future, blacks, but a skinny hillbilly girl in the picture made not in the middle of a war which suggested that it unsuitable too, company executives said, “because Regionalist optimism might be egregious fantasy. In the thinness of the little girl might suggest that 1944 Dali’s art became a big hit in the advertising proxmity to tobacco occasioned consumption.” world and signalled the adoption of Surrealism in Benton’s final effort focused on the handling of commercial adverti~ing.~~It also needless to say yellow tobacco leaves-whose “distinctive quality” signalled the demise of Surrealism as a viable was another ad mandate, in a quiet and pastoral painterly style. setting.39(Fig. 3) The use of fine art in advertising during the The restrictions ordered by the American 1930s and 40s indicates a conscious manipulation of Tobacco Company were necessary to sell goods. art, and the public which favored that art, by Artistic censorship paid off: tobacco sales increased. commercial culture brokers. It might be said that the But censorship also made Regionalist paintings into merger of the fine art style of Regionalism with strictly commercial advertisements, not art. As industry was a failure because industry forced the Benton said later, “Every time a patron dictates to original enthusiastic assurance of Regionalist art the artist what is to be done, he doesn’t get any art- into a stagnant mold of trite commercial advertising. he just gets a poor commercial job.”40Other artists Regionalist art was unable to deal effectively with or involved with the project felt the same way. They to provide answers to the growing tide of didn’t mind the income, but felt that unless the international pessimism and confusion. As the 1940s business world allowed artists the freedom of progressed, Regionalism’s popularity declined as the expression characteristic of art-not commerce- American public bestowed its favor on abstract and then artists were nothing more than company Surrealist art. Dropped from popular appreciation, propagandists, or “advertising prostitutes’’ as Regionalism could no longer produce the profits Benton called them. Fine art, Regionalism, and business wanted, and was retired from industrial commercial art, the art of advertising, did not application. achieve idyllic detente. Reeves Lewenthal’s aim to merge American art and industry had gone awry. The Regionalists also realized the pictures they Notes painted for use in the business world were changing ‘Although some would argue that the art of Thomas Hart the very nature and appreciation of their art. Benton and Grant Wood hardly qualifies as “fine” or “elite” it was Regionalism was the foremost popular style of art in collected by “fine” art establishments such as the Whitney Museum America throughout the depression and the first of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the 1930s; their paintings and careers were years of World War 11. Benton and Wood were frequently covered in leading art periodicals; and their art was household names; their paintings, the icons of deemed collectable by many of the top art brokers of the day. American culture. When business needed to appeal to 2See Time, December 24, 1934, pp. 24-27. public goodwill it relied on the Americana flavor and ,’JamesM. Dennis in Grant Wood:A Study in American Art and blissful futurism of Regionalism. But the rapid Culture (New York: Viking, 1975) suggests that Wood‘s precisely ordered farmscapes are projections of the artist’s hopes for a perfect spread of a regionally spiced style across a wide agricultural society. variety of ad campaigns was making Regionalism ‘In “Thomas Hart Benton’s Boomtown: Regionalism trite and stale. Benton’s serious formal studies of Redefined,” Prospects, The Annual Of American Cultural Studies, muscled workers energetically toiling their way ed. Jack Salzman, vol. 6 (New York: Burt Franklin and Company, through the depression, and Wood’s future Inc., 1981), pp. 73-137, Karal Ann Marling submits that Benton’s Regionalism is a mixture of future forecasting and idyllic farmscapes were successfully borrowed by reminiscing about the American past. commercial artists in Westinghouse and Pan “Time,April 31, 1941, pp. 71-72. American ads. And the bountiful income Regionalist 61bid. 17 LUCKY STRIKE MEANS FINE TOBACCO! One of a series of paintings of the tobacco country by America’s foremost artists 18 JOURNAL Of AMERiCAN CU~JRE

‘Advertisement appeared in American Artist, November 1940, French, Filmguide to The Grapes of Wrath (Bloomington: Indiana p. 29. University Press, 1973), p. 18. “Ibid. “Fox exploitation for The Grapes of Wrath. See The Grapes of YTime,April 21, 1941, p. 71. Wrath, clipping file, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and “’Reeves Lewenthal, Associated American Artists pamphlet, c. Sciences, Margaret Herrick Library, Beverly Hills. 1945, Archives of American Art,Washington, Microfilm Rolls N-122 ”Benton recognized the visual impact the movie’s characters and D-255. would have on the audience. He changed his own typecast sketches “Daniel Longwell, speech given at “Art Luncheon,” May 8, of people in Eastern Oklahoma and Northwestern Arkansas, drawn 1942, Longwell Papers, Box 32, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, years earlier, to conform to Hollywood’s typecast version of Okie Columbia University, New York. migrants. Although he wrote that he changed the original drawings lx‘‘ArtistThomas Hart Benton Hunts Communists and Fascists so that they would “not be so recognizable,” in essence, he altered in Michigan,” Life, July 26, 1937, pp. 22-25. them so that they would be more recognizable, familiar and credible 1,”J.C. Furnas, Stormy Weather, Crosslights of the Nineteen characters. Both Regional art and Hollywood movies depended on Thirties, An Informal Social History of the United States 1929-1941 the appeal of stereotypicality. See Fath, p. 90. (New York: Putnam’s, 1977), p. 509. ‘?Life first reported on The Grapes of Wrath in the June 5,1939 “William E. Leuchtenburg, in Franklin D. Kooseoelt and the issue, p. 66, in which photographs taken by Life potographer Horace New Deal, 1932-1940 (New York: Harper & Row, 1963) comments on Bristol were captioned by John Steinbeck, who had toured various the UAWs increased membership on page 240. See W.A. Swanberg, Okie camps with Bristol in March of 1938. Life reviewed the movie in Luce and His Empire (New York Scribner, 1972) for evidence of their January 22,1940 issue and reproduced stills from the film and Luce’s stand on communism, in particular pages 42, 70-71. one of Benton’s lithographs, pp. 29-31. In the “Speaking of Pictures” i”Although in 1916 Benton joined the People’s Art Guild, section of the February 19, 1940 issue stills from the movie were founded by social theorist and mathematician John Weischel, by juxtaposed with Bristol’s earlier photographs, which Life said 1932 Benton’s political proclivity had changed, perhaps due to “prove facts in ‘Grapes of Wrath’.” See pp. 10-11. critical reception of his murals for the library of the Whitney “Zanuck’s comments are quoted from interviews with Harry Museum of Modern Art. In “A Chronological Autobiography” in Brand, February 1, 1982 in Los Angeles, and Reeves Lewenthal, Thomas Hart Benton: A Personal Commemorative (Kansas City: November 24, 1981 in New York. Burd and Fletcher, 1973) Benton wrote: “These murals drew sharp “The seven other artists were George Biddle, James Chapin, criticism. Fellow instructors at the Art Students League drew up a Ernest Fiene, Robert Philipp, Luis Quintanilla, Raphael Sayer and round robin letter of condemnation. The New Republic published a Georges Schreiber. See “The Long Voyage Home as Seen and special article on the mural’s inadequacies. Representing facets of Painted by Nine American Artists,” American Artist, September 4, ordinary American life and folk lore, the Marxist group of New York 1940, pp. 4-14. attacked the work as a form of chauvinism, as politically :‘OAssociated American Artists Exhibition Catalog, 1940, reactionary, and ‘isolationist.’ A ‘question-answer’ appearance on Archives of American Art, Washington, Microfilm Roll, D-255. the meaning of the murals at the John Reed Club, the center of ‘”TheLong Voyage Home was directed by John Ford, starred artistic and literary radicalism in New York, wound up in a chair- Thomas Mitchell, John Wayne, Barry Fitzgerald and John Qualen, throwing brawl and resulted in the loss of many old radical-minded and was released in 1940. See J.A. Place, The Nan- Western Films of friends.” See page. 15. John Ford (Secaucus, N.J.: The Citadel Press, 1979), pp. 258-261. ]“Life, July 26, 1937, p. 22. :’”Althoughthe term film noir was not invented until 1946 by a ”Thomas Hart Benton in The Lithographs of Thomas Hart French film critic, the genre has precedents, perhaps dating to the Benton, ed. Creekmore Fath, new ed. (Austin: University of Texas birth of a German Expresionist film. Typically, film noir is “a self- Press, 1969, 1979), p. 184. contained reflection of American cultural preoccupations in film %ee Murray Ross’ Stars and Strikes: The Unionization of form.’’ See Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Hollywood (New York Columbia University Press, 1941). In Style, eds. Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward (Woodstock, N.Y.: The Benton’s possession until his death in 1975, Hollywood (oil and Overlook Press, 1979), p. 1. tempera on canvas mounted on panel 53% x 81”) is now in the .’:’TheLong Voyage Home won an award as one of the ten William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Exceptional Photoplays of 1940 from the National Board of Review 19In 1937 art critic and personal friend Tom Craven wrote, “He of Motion Pictures, Inc., established by the People’s Institution, and designed settings for the Fox Film Company at the old studio in Fort Wanger received a “Certificate Award” for the film from the Art Lee, New Jersey and painted display portraits of Theda Bara, Clara Directory Club of New York. Walter Wanger Collection, Wisconsin Kimball Young, and other stars.. . .” See “Thomas Hart Benton,” Center for Film and Theater Research, Madison, Wisconsin. Scribner’s, October 1937, p. 35. In 1973 Benton commented on his “‘Newsweek, March 11, 1940, p. 56. friendship with Rex Ingram, “who was a director in the film ,x~“Behindthe Cigarette Verdict,” Business Week, Nov. 8, 1941, industry’s early days in Fort Lee, New Jersey. He got me involved in pp. 17-19. 1914 as a set designer and general handyman, at seven and a half .‘“‘WartimeSmoking,” Business Week, August 16,1941, pp. 19- dollars a day. I worked for, I believe it was Pathe at first, and later 21. with Fox.” See “An Artist in America,” by Robert S. Gallagher in .”However, as the war went on the American Tobacco Company American Heritage, June 1973, p. 43. was unable to obtain the green dye dominant in Lucky Strike Y3tarring Tyrone Power, Alice Faye and Don Ameche, In Old packaging. Substituting white for green, the company advertised its Chicago was released by Fox in early 1938. “Darryl Zanuck’s wartime patriotism with the slogan, “Lucky Strike Green Has Gone capacity for the spectacular and the exciting in pictorial to War.” entertaiment was never better illustrated than in this screen sagaof .’“SeeChart, “How the Cigarette Brands Stand,” Business Week, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.” See Foremost Films of 1938 (Los July 29, 1944, p. 21. Angeles: The Film Daily, 1939), p. 79-96. ‘SBenton’s account of his work with the American Tobacco “Benton’s perceptions are paralleled in Nathanael West’s The Company begins: “We were told we would bring up the levels of Day of the Locust (1939) and Aldous Huxley’s After Many a Summer advertising and set up a much needed relation between business and Dies the Swan (1939). art. Recognizing the needed relation, money is sweet we mentioned. Whomas Hart Benton to Daniel Longwell, February 8, 1938. Needless to say, the end result which showed up pretty quickly was Benton File, Langwell papers, box 32, Rare Book and Manuscript that our own level went down. You can’t play with corruption Library, Columbia University, New York. without being corrupted. However we couldn’t get down far enough ‘”Interview with Reeves Lewenthal, New York, November 24, and were soon dropped.” From the Thomas Hart Benton Papers, 1981. Archives of American Art, Washington. Z4‘‘Thenovel was condemned and banned in many places and 4”“Businessand Art, As Tom Benton Sees It,” New York P.M., actually ordered burned in East St. Louis, Illinois.” See Warren December 2,1945. Associated American Artists Collection, Archives BORROWiNCi REt$ONAliSM 19

of American Art, Washington, Microfilm Roll D-255. “In 1944 Newsweek reported that Dali had done work for 1 ‘Certainly Dali’s earlier work, Soft construction with boiled Johnson paints, the Koppers Company, and Schiaparelli cosmetics. beans: premonition of civil war (1936) and later pieces such as See “Surrealism Pays,” Newsweek, January 3, 1944, pp. 56-57. Melancholia atornica ( 1948) capture the sense of international crisis before and after the war, whereas much of Regionalist art tended to ignore the war completely, with the exception of government Erika L. Doss is a Ph.D. student in the Department. of Art History, propaganda work. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 5455.

available for 1984-85 in each of these programs. In NEH Offers Fellowships for 1984-85 addition, a small number of Constitutional Fellowships will be offered through a special The National Endowment for the Humanities competition held in anticipation of the 200th announces the availability of three categories of anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Constitution. fellowships for 1984-85:Fellowships for Independent Applications may come from any college or Study and Research, Fellowships for College university teacher or any independent scholar, and Teachers, and Constitutional Fellowships. proposals may address the history of the founding Fellowships for Independent Study and period, constitutional principles, comparative Research are for scholars, teachers, and others who constitutional government, individual rights, the can make significant contributions to thought and character of democracy, American Federalism, knowledge in the humanities and want time to American political institutions, Constitutional enlarge their contributions and enhance their interpretation, or any other topic that would be scholarly abilities. Both younger amd senior appropriate to the observation of the Constitutional scholars are encouraged to apply. Bicentenary. Fellowships for College Teachers are for All NEH fellowships are for periods of six to teachers whose day-to-day responsibilities lie in the twelve months and stipends range up to $25,000. The teaching of undergraduate students, particularly in application deadline for 1984-85is June 1, 1983, for two-year, four-year, and five-year colleges and in all fellowships; awards will be announced by universities that do not have PhD programs. The approximately December 1, 1983; and successful program is predicated upon an equal respect for applicants may begin tenure of their Fellowships as study and research directed toward scholarly early as Jan. 1, 1984. Application guidelines and publication and study and research directed toward materials are available from the Division of course content and teaching. Proposals may Fellowships and Seminars, Room 316, National therefore have either aim. Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, D.C. Funds permitting, 120-130 fellowships will be 20506.