A runaway train is seconds away from a disastrous fall into stormy waters. The engineer is fast asleep.
“Engineer’s Dream” (1931), from the Brooks collection, will be exhibited June 9 to September 2 as part of “Thomas Hart Benton: Train Wrecks and Hillbilly Songs” at the Brooks. The other prominent train painting to be displayed, “Wreck of the Ole ’97” (1943), is from the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
According to the Brooks website, “Both paintings are based on folk songs, and this exhibition places them within the context of the songs and railroad legends that inspired them.”