Ms. Benton compares his role to that of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and BenShahn, commissioned to document the need for New Deal farm programs in rural areas to which they were strangers.
The Sheldon's holdings sound a roll call of America's significant painters, from luminaries such as Albert Bierstadt, Willem de Kooning and Thomas Eakins to others such as Fairfield Porter, Maurice Prendergast and BenShahn.