STUDY FOR THE LITHOGRAPH. THOMAS HART BENTON The Swamp<>.
Pencil on cream wove paper, circa 1941. 245x210 mm; 10x8¼ inches. Initialed "B" in pencil, lower right recto.
A study for the lithograph Swampland<>, one of a series of 6 lithographs commissioned by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation to publicize a film based on Vereen Bell's Saturday Evening Post novel Swampwater<>. It was the first American film of the French director Jean Renoir. According to Benton, "The drawing, minus the skull, was made in south Louisiana--area forgotten, but within 50 or 60 miles of Abbeville, La." Fath p. 118.
