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Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
THOMAS HART BENTON Slow Train Through Arkansas.
Lithograph, 1941. 255x326 mm; 10x12 3/4 inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. A superb impression with strong contrasts.
Benton's (1889-1975) lithograph is based on an excerpt from Thomas W. Jackson's 1903 collection of humorous stories, On a Slow Train through Arkansas. He also made a painting of this scene around the same time, which is now in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville.
Jackson's story reads, "It was down in Arkansas I rode the slowest train I ever saw. It stopped at every house. When it came to a double house, it stopped twice. They made so many stops I said, 'Conductor, what have we stopped for now?' He said, 'There are some cattle on the track.' We ran a little ways further and stopped again. I said, 'What is the matter now?' He said, 'We have caught up with those cattle again.'" Fath 46.
