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Thomas Hart Benton (April 15, 1889 – January 19, 1975) was an American painter and muralist. Born in Neosho, Missouri, he attended Western Military Academy (which closed in 1971) as a teen and in WWI served in the US Navy as a “camoufleur,.” This entailed Benton sitting all day at Hampton Roads, drawing the camouflaged ships that entered Norfolk harbor. This was done 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.

After his military service he painted and made murals and some of the best art work in the country. During WWII he again served his country as a military artist. Benton created a series titled The Year of Peril, which portrayed the threat to American ideals by fascism and Nazism.

She’s Off, LST 768 at Launch in 1944

He then sailed on the USS Dorado (SS-248), a Gato-class submarine, to document a US Navy submarine in pen, pencil and paint.  Paintings from the Dorado by Hart include Score Another for the Subs, In Slumber Deep, and The Claustrophobic Confines.His work on the Dorado saved that ship in Time and she is on eternal patrol, sunk, off Panama on 12 October 1943, just six weeks after her commissioning.

Slumber Deep by Thomas Hart Benton

Of course besides his military themed art, Benton produced hundreds of works that are known and loved, particularly in the Midwest and plains regions. Benton died in 1975 and his house studio in Kansas City is preserved as a museum, frozen on its own eternal patrol. If you are ever in KC you should look it up.

One of his murals