Past Present

  • LIT at Large,  Past Present

    From the Walls of The New School to The MET: Revisiting Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today

    by Vicky Oliver, Nonfiction Editor

    photo by the author
    Thomas Hart Benton’s ten-panel mural, painted with egg tempera and oil glazing over Permalba on a gesso ground linen mounted to wood panels with a honeycomb interior. Originally painted in 1930-1931 for the New School, America Today now resides at the MET.

    At the New School, we write stories. Whether we are setting down our pasts or conjuring a future world or are just trying to capture what is happening right now in the present,