Thomas Hinton

Arkansas artist Thomas Hinton (1906-1975), whose paintings provide cover art for both Tangled Roots and One Summer in Arkansas, lives on in the hearts and homes of the children and grandchildren of Karlton and Flora Kemp and Nancy Anderson Kemp, as well as in galleries and homes in Arkansas and throughout the country. He captured the unique beauty of Arkansas as few artists have. Trained at the Art Institute of Chicago, Hinton has exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery, the National Gallery of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, and during his lifetime received numerous awards for his work. I’m grateful to his niece Betty Miller Jones and her daughter Valorie Jones for permitting use of the images on both books. The original oil painting “Return from Sunday School” which was used on the cover of One Summer in Arkansas hangs in my daughter’s home in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, as does the cover art for Tangled Roots. The creekside image on the cover of Tangled Roots, meant to convey the feel of Manada Creek near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is in fact another Arkansas scene, just off Highway 71 near Mena.