Thomas Hart Benton, arguably the single most controversial figure in the history of American art, played a major role in shaping three separate movements in American art: the early American modernism of the 1910s and '20s; the Reigonalism of the 1930s (a movement he led in partnership with Grant Wood); and finally (through his influence on his pupil Jackson Pollock) the Abstract Expressionism of the 1940s. Benton was also a notable writer, whose autobiography, An Artist in America, became a best seller. He was a gifted musician who collected folk tunes, devised a new form of musical notation for the harmonica (which is still widely used by music publishers), and performed with his son on a record produced by Decca records, Saturday Night at Tom Benton's. No other American artist has generated so many myths - or so many misunderstandings. This new book of essays by Henry Adams - who organized a major retrospective of Benton's work in 1989 on the centennial of the artist's birth, worked on a documentary about Benton with Ken Burns, and compiled a catalogue raisonné of his paintings - is selected from twenty-five years of writing on Benton and the controversies about his work. Varied in their approaches, these essays form an intimate biography of Benton in a series of close-up snapshots that hone in on key questions about his work. -- from dust jacket.