• Benton was named for his great uncle, Thomas Hart Benton, one of the first two US Senators elected from Missouri.

• With Kansan John Steuart Curry and Iowan Grant Wood, Benton became a leading proponent of American Regionalism--celebrated during the 1930s and 1940s for his depictions of everyday life in rural America.

• The artist taught painting at the Art Students League of New York and the Kansas City Art Institute. His most famous student was Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock.

• Benton painted murals in the Missouri State Capitol and the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri.