Thomas Hart Benton

(Missouri, 1889-1975)

Train Hauling Logs, 1928

Graphite on paper

5 1/2" x 11"

Benton scholar Dr. Henry Adams offered the following context for the imagery: "This drawing represents the logging train which Benton included in the background of his Changing West panel of his mural America Today. As Benton’s drawing shows, the locomotives for logging trains were different than those on regular railroads. They were smaller, ran on a smaller gauge track, and employed a Shay engine, with direct gearing to each wheel, since regular engines were unable to climb the steep grades that led to logging sites. The locomotives for logging were also more old-fashioned in appearance than those for freight or passenger trains, since they served a smaller, less competitive niche of the railroad market: this example has the tall funnel and boxy appearance of locomotives of the 1890s.

"Benton exhibited some twenty sketches of “The Lumber Camp” in his Delphic Gallery exhibition of 1929. A drawing of this train owned by the Whitney Museum of American Art records the design that Benton followed in his mural. Another drawing reproduced by Matthew Baigell in his biography of Benton, shows this same train crossing a bridge crudely constructed from logs.

"While he made a number of drawings of this specific lumber camp, Benton gave it brief mention in his autobiography, noting only that his friend Bill Hayden, 'invited to a lumberjack’s breakfast, mistook the thick bacon-grease gravy for oatmeal, poured canned milk and sugar on it, and being ashamed of his mistake, had to eat it while the boys looked on wondering at his strange and virile tastes.'"

Matted to 16" x 20".

There is a tear and creasing along the right edge of the sheet. Mild toning and faint foxing.