{
"data": {
"id": 159275,
"accession_number": "1995.70",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "G.O.P. Convention, Cleveland, 1936. Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889\u20131975). Pen and brush and black ink and black crayon, with graphite; image: 35.6 x 51.5 cm (14 x 20 1/4 in.); sheet: 37.4 x 53.2 cm (14 3/4 x 20 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, 1995.70. Art \u00a9 T.H. Benton and R.P. Benton Testamentary Trusts/UMB Bank Trustee/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY",
"current_location": null,
"title": "G.O.P. Convention, Cleveland",
"creation_date": "1936",
"creation_date_earliest": 1936,
"creation_date_latest": 1936,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "pen and brush and black ink and black crayon, with graphite",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "creme(2) wove paper",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - American 20th Century",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Image: 35.6 x 51.5 cm (14 x 20 1/4 in.); Sheet: 37.4 x 53.2 cm (14 3/4 x 20 15/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.374,
"height_inch": 14,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"width": 0.532,
"width_inch": 20,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.9375
},
"image": {
"height": 0.356,
"height_inch": 14,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.515,
"width_inch": 20,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.25
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "Art \u00a9 T.H. Benton and R.P. Benton Testamentary Trusts/UMB Bank Trustee/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY",
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "signed, lower right, in black ink: Benton",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 191183,
"title": "American Drawings from the Permanent Collection",
"description": "American Drawings from the Permanent Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 19-July 12, 1998).",
"opening_date": "1998-04-19T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 192019,
"title": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).",
"opening_date": "2000-08-27T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Private Collection, New York, NY",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "by early 1950s-before 1995",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "(Jordan-Volpe Gallery, Inc., New York, NY)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?-1995",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "December 4, 1995",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Thomas Hart Benton was a lifelong Democrat, which may have informed the focus on drama and disorder throughout his drawings of the Republican National Convention.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Thomas Hart Benton traveled to Cleveland during the summer of 1936 to attend the Republican National Convention and record its events through sketches. This drawing shows delegates engaged in a variety of activities, included whispered deal making and a scuffle that attracts the attention of a policeman. Benton used areas of crosshatching, parallel lines, and subtle shading to create a sense of drama, reducing the crowd of onlookers to a regular pattern of circular marks. The series of drawings was likely intended for reproduction in magazines, such as Life, although only one was ultimately published, in the journal Common Sense. Benton's dynamic and easily legible style lent itself to such illustrations and characterized the many depictions of American life that he made around this period.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79978640"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, \u201cThe Cleveland Museum of Art Acquires Major Works,\u201d December 20, 1995, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
"page_number": null,
"url": "https://archive.org/details/cmapr4002"
},
{
"citation": "\"Museum Acquisitions.\" Drawing 17, nos. 4-6 (November 1995 - March 1996): 105.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 105",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 36 no. 10, December 1996",
"page_number": "Mentioned & reproduced: p. 7",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM1996-10/page/6"
},
{
"citation": "DeGrazia, Diane, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp. 258-258, pp. 297-298; Reproduced: p. 259",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Mazow, Leo G. Thomas Hart Benton and the American Sound. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp. 65-67; Reproduced: p. 66",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "\"Exhibitions.\" Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 56, no. 4 (July/August 2016): 4.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: Back cover",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2016-04"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1995.70",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 159275,
"creators": [
{
"id": 1204,
"description": "Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889\u20131975)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1889",
"death_year": "1975",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1995-12-04T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1936,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1936",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": true,
"updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:52:02.167000"
}
}