One of Thomas Hart Benton’s late mural commissions was Jacques Cartier Discovers the Indians, 1956-57, for the Power Authority of the State of New York at Massena near Niagara Falls. In this painting Benton described the moment when the sixteenth-century French discover of the Saint Lawrence River, Jacques Cartier, is presented with gifts by people from the Seneca nation.
Around 1919 Benton began to make it a practice to construct three-dimensional clay models of scenes he intended to paint. The bronze Indian and Frenchman was cast from the clay models of the mural’s central figures.
Dr. Franklin Murphy, a friend of Benton’s and former chancellor of the University of Kansas, was instrumental in having the bronze cast. During a visit to Benton’s studio in the mid-1950s Murphy came across the clay models for the two figures, which Benton reluctantly allowed Murphy to have cast. The clay model was destroyed after an edition of three was cast by Eldon Teft, University of Kansas.
