Thomas Hart Benton - part 4 WWII

This is part four of a four-part post on the works of American 'Regionalist' artist Thomas Hart Benton. For biographical notes on Benton see part one.

US Navy Art Collection:

Benton was deeply moved by the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, and shortly thereafter he completed "The Year of Peril," a series of grim and powerful war paintings financed by Abbott Laboratories. In 1943 he collaborated with Georges Schreiber in producing the Abbott Collection of Submarine Paintings, a project largely executed aboard the American submarine Dorado, which was later lost in action with all hands.
Later in the war, classified as a "camoufleur," Benton had to draw camouflaged ships that came into Norfolk harbour. His work was required for several reasons: to ensure that U.S. ship painters were correctly applying the camouflage schemes, to aid in identifying U.S. ships that might later be lost, and to have records of the ship camouflage of other Allied navies. Benton later said that his work for the Navy "was the most important thing, so far, I had ever done for myself as an artist."

(not dated) Barroom pen & ink with brown wash

1942 WWII Shipping Out

1943 Down the Lower Mississippi pen & ink wash

1943 Score Another for the Subs oil on board

c1943 All Work pen & ink wash

c1943 Loading the LST pen & ink wash

c1943 Look Out Below pen & ink wash

c1943 Preliminary Shake Down, New Orleans pen & ink wash

c1943 Salt & Steel pen & ink wash

c1943 This Way In pen & ink wash

1944 She's Off watercolour

1944 Stow Her Away Mates pen & ink wash

1944 WWII Back Him Up

c1944 War Isn't All Mechanized pen & ink

c1944 Battle Stations Submerged ink wash

c1944 Bow Up pen &ink wash

c1944 Coffee and Chow pen & ink wash

c1944 Note Well pen & ink wash

c1944 On the Old Ohio pen & ink wash

c1944 (?) pen & ink wash

c1944 Slumber Deep watercolour

c1944 Stern Task pen & ink wash

c1944 This Way Out pen & ink wash

c1944 Up Periscope oil on canvas

c1944 Up the Hatch oil on pressboard