Self-Portrait

1905–1906

His father sends him to Western Military Academy

Hoping to shape his son for a political career, his father sends him to Western Military Academy. Having grown up in two different cultures, Benton rebels against his father's plans: he wants to develop his interest in art, and his mother supports him.

1907

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

With his mother's encouragement he enrolls at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, choosing art over politics; as a teenager he had worked as a cartoonist for the Joplin American newspaper in Joplin, Missouri. His mother supports him financially and emotionally until he marries at 33.

1909

Paris: the Académie Julian and a meeting with Rivera

Moves to Paris to continue his art education at the Académie Julian. There he meets other North American artists, among them the Mexican Diego Rivera and Stanton Macdonald-Wright, an advocate of Synchromism, under whose influence Benton later adopts a Synchromist style.