Thomas Hart Benton 1889 - 1975

Private Collection, Kansas City, Missouri, 1945 (acquired from the artist)
Private Collection (her sister-in-law; gift from the above)
By descent to the present owners (her son and daughter-in-law)

The present work likely depicts Henry Look's farm, a subject Thomas Hart Benton painted several times, which was located up the hill from his home in Martha's Vineyard. Benton painted another version of Island Hay—formerly in the collection of the Thomas Hart Benton Trust, Kansas City, Missouri—likely before the present work in 1945. He executed both paintings in preparation for a lithograph he created in the same year, which also features this subject.