Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists Speaker Series begins Oct. 1

By Abigail Howard

Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015

Interested in American Art? Art history? Marketing? Beach Museum curator, Elizabeth Seaton, presents Art by Mail: Associated American Artists on Thursday, Oct. 1 at 5:30pm. Seaton’s presentation will discuss AAA’s storied involvement in the popularization of American prints in the 1930s, as well as its ongoing promotion of American art over six decades. This is the first in a series of presentations related to the exhibition Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists.

"The Sowers" by Thomas Hart Benton is from the series "The Year of Peril." Benton began the series immediately after the December 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, compelled to express on canvas this heightened threat to American democracy. The painting is in the collection of the State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia Research Center and Gallery.
“The Sowers” by Thomas Hart Benton is from the series “The Year of Peril.” Benton began the series immediately after the December 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, compelled to express on canvas this heightened threat to American democracy. The painting is in the collection of the State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia Research Center and Gallery.

Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists,an exhibition organized by the Beach Museum of Art, provides the first comprehensive overview of the commercial gallery best known as the publisher of prints by regionalist artists Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood that were sold via mail-order catalog. More than 136 works in the exhibition provide an account of Associated American Artists’ storied involvement in the sale of American prints and its lesser-known promotion of paintings, ceramics and textiles for more than six decades. Through aggressive marketing, Associated American Artists sought to bring original American art over the threshold of every American home.

A speaker series related to the exhibition will take place throughout the fall at the museum and includes the following presentations, all at 5:30 p.m.:

• Elizabeth Seaton, Beach Museum of Art curator will present “Art by Mail: Associated American Artists” on Thursday, Oct. 1.

• Joan Stack, State Historical Society of Missouri curator, will present “Thomas Hart Benton: The Perils of War” on Thursday, Oct. 29.

• Kristina Wilson, Clark University professor of art history, will present “The American Home of the 1950s” on Thursday, Nov. 5.

• Erika Doss, Notre Dame University professor of American studies, will present “Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood” on Thursday, Nov. 19.

The reception and speaker series are free and the public is welcome. Continue reading “Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists Speaker Series begins Oct. 1” →