Portrait of a Musician
Artist: Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975)
Date: 1949
Medium: Casein, egg tempera and oil varnish on canvas mounted on wood panel
Collection: Museum of Art and Archeology, Columbia, Missouri, United States
Description
This painting by Thomas Hart Benton is a portrait of an African American jazz musician who played in Kansas City. In this painting, you can see that the curving lines of the double bass the musician is playing are repeated or echoed in the curves of the his face, hands, and body. Seeing the repetition of so many lines in similar but different ways reminds us of the way that jazz music often repeats the same musical phrases with variations, making the music sound similar but slightly different each time it is repeated.
The model for Portrait of a Musician was a jazz bassist who played in a Kansas City nightclub that Benton often went to in the 1940s. He was interested in representing African American culture in Missouri and he particularly enjoyed drawing and painting jazz players and folk musicians. African Americans were often ignored by most white artists in the first half of the 20th century, making this an unusual painting for the time period.
