Dispute Roils Estate of Prominent American Artist The heirs of Thomas Hart Benton, whose works have sold for as much as $5 million apiece, are suing a Kansas City bank, alleging it mismanaged the artist’s estate; the bank calls the allegations ‘misguided’ Jessie Benton as a child with her father, painter Thomas Hart Benton. Photo: Jessie Benton By Kelly Crow Dec. 18, 2019 12:50 pm ET The heirs of 20th-century American painter Thomas Hart Benton are suing a Kansas City bank, alleging it has mismanaged the multimillion-dollar estate of the influential artist, including hundreds of artworks. The artist’s daughter, Jessie Benton, and her three children filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Mo., on Tuesday against UMB Bank, run by Kansas City’s prominent Kemper family. The bank manages a pair of trusts tied to the late artist, who died in 1975 and ranks alongside Grant Wood as a leader of an American painting style known as Regionalism that flourished between the 1920s and 1940s. Benton’s paintings, which hang in major U.S. museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, have sold at auction for as much as $5 million apiece. Ms. Benton, who is 80 years old and lives in Chilmark, Mass., alleged in the filing that the bank has lost track of at least 100 of her father’s artworks over the years and largely neglected the rest. The suit claims the bank at one point charged the Benton trusts “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to construct a climate-controlled vault but later moved the artist’s works to a different depository that’s not climate-controlled. The suit also alleges the bank sold batches of her father’s works to dealers without tracking the works’ titles or descriptions. Jim Rine, the bank’s president and chief executive, declined through a spokeswoman to comment on the suit’s specific allegations. In a statement, the bank said: “UMB values the relationships with individuals and families for whom it has the privilege of providing trust management services. Despite our extensive efforts to address issues presented, the Benton family and its representatives have chosen to resolve alleged issues through litigation. We take our role as a trustee for art and other assets seriously and will directly address and defend the misguided allegations made in the lawsuit. We look forward to this matter being resolved as quickly and fairly as possible.” Benton’s masterpiece is a 1935-37 mural seen in Missouri’s state capitol, ‘A Social History of the State of Missouri.’ Photo: The Granger Collection The dispute matters because of Thomas Hart Benton’s artistic stature and influence. Born in Missouri in 1889, he studied art in cosmopolitan cities like Paris and New York. But he eventually rejected the reigning style of his time—abstraction—in favor of realistic yet kaleidoscopic scenes of everyday American life, from fishermen and farmers to carnival barkers and cowboys. Benton’s masterpiece is a 1935-37 mural seen in Missouri’s state capitol, “A Social History of the State of Missouri.” Dealers said Benton’s market has enjoyed a revival in recent years with the surging popularity of figurative art, so they’re keeping an eye on the dispute. Family feuds over coveted collections are commonplace. But it’s unusual for heirs of an iconic artist like Benton to have enlisted a bank rather than a family member, art adviser or gallery to care for the artist’s assets and legacy. Typically, artists’ estates are managed by people with personal ties or by a nonprofit foundation formed to bolster the artist’s market value and prestige—often by selling some works into museum collections, organizing shows, chasing down entities that infringe on their artist’s copyrights, and even licensing merchandising. The fight over Benton highlights the challenges that can arise when an artist’s holdings are managed by a commercial bank rather than descendants or an artist’s foundation. SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS What’s the best outcome for this dispute? Join the conversation below. The bank’s former chairman, R. Crosby Kemper Jr. , was a major collector of Benton’s work. In 1994, he and his wife founded the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City. In 2004, he turned the reins of UMB Financial Corp., which runs the bank, over to his son, Mariner. Mariner is also on the board of the Kemper museum, where his sister Mary Kemper Wolf serves as chair of the board of trustees. Mr. Kemper Jr. died in 2014. Among the filing’s allegations are that Benton’s “Desert Artist,” a 1962 portrait, was bequeathed in the artist’s will to a foundation connected to Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art but was later redirected by the bank’s then-chairman, Mr. Kemper Jr., to the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. The Kemper’s website lists the work in its permanent collection as having been part of the “Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection” and given to the museum in 2000. The museum said its records indicate Mr. Kemper Jr. and his wife bought the painting from a gallery, not the trusts, before giving it to their namesake museum. The Kempers couldn’t be reached for comment individually. Representatives for the bank and the museum said the family members have been informed of the lawsuit’s allegations. During his lifetime, the artist asked his wife, Rita, to handle his business affairs, but he did draw up a will sometime during the last decade of his life, his daughter said in an interview. He and his wife each set up trusts to manage their assets, of which the bank along with a lawyer who is now deceased were co-trustees. Ms. Benton and her older brother, T.P., were set up as beneficiaries. Ms. Benton says the bank as trustee had the authority to sell Benton’s art, but she thought the bank would notify her before selling major paintings. The bank declined to comment on whether it notified the family before selling works. The family was left reeling after Benton died, in part because his wife died three months later. At the time, Ms. Benton said, she had three young children and so followed her parents’ wishes to entrust the art to the bank aside from some paintings she was allowed to take for her own collection. Ms. Benton said her brother was also given a few paintings from their parents like “T.P. and Jake,” but she said he otherwise deferred to the bank managing their parents’ holdings. He died in 2010. Initially, Ms. Benton gave little thought to her parents’ estate, she said, aside from receiving a yearly distribution check from the trusts. Eventually, she started to wonder why she wasn’t getting updated appraisals tracking the shifting values of her father’s assets in the trusts. (Experts recommend artist estates get reappraised every three years.) She also began to worry because she said she never received a complete log of the works held in the trusts, including pieces that had already sold. When she asked, she said they demurred and never provided one. Her filing alleges that “for a period of over 40 years after the inception of the trusts, valid appraisals of the assets” were not obtained by the bank. The bank said the ongoing litigation prevented it from commenting on the alleged lag in appraisals or its methods for tracking the artist’s works, but Mr. Rine in a statement said, “We take our role as a trustee for art and other assets seriously.” The bank did hire a pair of appraisers in the past couple of years to assess the works’ values, according to the filing. A brochure posted online by the bank in 2014 said UMB’s fine art management services stores its art in “climate-controlled vaults.” An accompanying image shows a worker wearing white gloves while handling a Benton lithograph of “The Little Fisherman.” Write to Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com https://www.wsj.com/articles/dispute-roils-estate-of-prominent-american-artist-11576691414