If Thomas Hart Benton’s art could talk …

In her new book Scenes from the Heartland: Stories Based on Lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton, award-winning novelist, short story writer, and poet Donna Baier Stein picks up in prose where the iconic Kansas City artist left off in his studio more than half a century ago. She imagines the stories and lives of the subjects of nine of Benton’s lithographs—fiddlers and farm wives, preachers and soldiers, folks gathering in dance halls and tent meetings.

Stein, originally from Kansas City herself, discusses her inspiration for the imaginative collection of stories, which she imbues with painstaking research of rural life and events in Missouri and Arkansas in the years leading up to World War II.

For presentation slides, click here.