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Thomas Hart Benton's Persephone

An exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art called Bingham to Benton: The Midwest as Muse has a section devoted to Thomas Hart Benton's Persephone and the process behind it. By Laura Spencer

Kansas City, Missouri – Controversy is nothing new for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The Bloch building, the addition designed by architect Steven Holl now under construction, has been a topic of recent discussion; in the 1990s, it was the Shuttlecocks; but, a decade before that, there was Thomas Hart Benton?s Persephone. It's a painting an art historian has called ?one of the great works of American pornography.? An exhibition at the Nelson Atkins-Museum called Bingham to Benton: The Midwest as Muse has a section devoted to this painting and the process behind it. KCUR?s Laura Spencer reports.

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