Thomas Hart Benton’s naval gazing

The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Naval Station Norfolk with an exhibition of works by the American Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton, who was stationed at the base at the end of the First World War and referred to this time as a turning point in his development as an artist, says the Chryslers curator of exhibitions, Seth Feman. Before [the First World War], he had been experimenting in abstract styles largely by looking to the late