This post was originally published on artnews.com
The five-year legal battle between the heirs of American scene painter Thomas Hart Benton and a Kansas City bank accused of mismanaging his estate, selling his pieces for below their market value, and misplacing more than 100 artworks, has ended in a win for the bank.
Missouri judge Mark Styles ruled that UMB Bank did not violate its duty to the famous regionalist painter, who left his holdings in their care prior to his death in 1975. Styles found that only five works from Benton’s collection could not be accounted for by UMB Bank. The missing works were not paintings, but likely sketches or studies, according to KCUR-FM, which first reported the news.
“From the beginning, we stood firm in our belief that Crosby Kemper and the UMB associates who worked on this Trust for over 40 years acted with integrity and in the best interests of the Trust, UMB financial corporation chief legal officer Amy Harris said in a statement first quoted by KCUR.
The artist’s heirs, led by his daughter, Jessie Benton, sued the bank in 2019, seeking $85 million. They claimed that throughout its 40-year administration of the Benton Trust, the bank sold poorly appraised artworks without the estate’s approval, and violated its copyrights and licenses.
The family was awarded $35,000—a fraction of their desired amount. The family’s lawyer said in a statement that the family was considering an appeal.
“Despite the decision from this trial, we still strongly believe in the merits of the case for the Benton family,” said Kent Emison of the Langdon & Emison law firm, which represents the family.
Thomas Hart Benton was born in 1889, and lived and painted in Kansas City’s Roanoke neighborhood, though he frequently traversed America’s Midwest, South, and New York regions, while tasked with creating murals for universities, companies, and the U.S. government. He had a dynamic, exaggerated style that complemented his frequent subject, the industrial upheaval of the early 20th century and its impact on not only labor but also on American entertainment. (Jackson Pollock, a student of his at the Art Students League, frequently modeled for his murals of heroic laborers.)
By the 1930s and throughout the 1940s, Benton became associated with Regionalism—among its devotees, Grant Wood—which rejected abstract expressionism and exalted realist representations of rural America. He created over 3,500 artworks during his lifetime, all of which transferred to the Benton Trust and subsequently, the bank.
“UMB was tasked by Benton to help grow and establish his legacy as a world renowned artist after his death,” Judge Styles wrote in the verdict. “The evidence established UMB accomplished Benton’s wishes and desires.”