''Persephone'' is a 1939 painting by the American painter Thomas Hart Benton. It depicts the Greek goddess

Persephone In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Persephone ( ; gr, Περσεφόνη, Persephónē), also called Kore or Cora ( ; gr, Κόρη, Kórē, the maiden), is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the underworld after ...

, resting nude by a tree in a rural

Midwestern The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

setting. Benton, dressed in farmer's clothes, plays the role of

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...

and peeks from behind the tree. It was painted at the Kansas City Art Institute where Benton worked as a teacher. Several of Benton's students also made their own versions of the subject. A reporter from ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' visited Benton in his studio during his work on this painting and his other famous nude painting from the same period, ''Susanna and the Elders''. The model for ''Persephone'' was Imogene Bruton. Bruton modeled for students at the school in the 1930s but abandoned modeling after completing ''Persephone''. She married in 1940, and was later unwilling to talk about her time as a model. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

bought the painting in 1986. The museum paid $2,500,000, which was a new record for a Benton painting. The painting inspired ''

Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite ''Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite'' is a 1974 photograph by Judy Dater. It depicts elderly photographer Imogen Cunningham, encountering nude model Twinka Thiebaud behind a tree in Yosemite National Park. It is considered Dater's most popular photog ...

'', a 1974 photograph by Judy Dater.

References

Thomas Craven Thomas Craven (January 6, 1888 – February 27, 1969) was an American author, critic and lecturer, who promoted the work of American Regionalist painters, Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, among others. He was known for h ...

, ''A Treasury of Art Masterpieces from the Renaissance to the Present Day'', New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939, pp. 578–79 * Thomas Craven, ''A Descriptive Catalog of the Works of Thomas Hart Benton: Spotlighting the Important Periods during the Artist’s Thirty-two Years of Painting'', exhibition catalog, New York: Associated American Artists, 1939, cat. #45

External links

''Persephone''
at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art {{Authority control Persephone 1939 paintings Nude art Paintings by Thomas Hart Benton Paintings depicting Greek myths Paintings in Kansas Paintings in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Paintings of goddesses