Timely auction of Benton's "Flood Disaster"

The devastating effects of the recently rising Mississippi flood waters in the South are echoed in a 60-year-old painting offered at auction this week. "Flood Disaster," by American Scene painter and muralist Thomas Hart Benton, is a highlight of Sotheby's sale of American Paintings on Thursday. The presale estimate is $800,000 to $1.2 million.

Benton, who hailed from Missouri, created the painting to highlight the extent of damage caused by the Kansas and Missouri rivers when they swelled to 70 times their normal size on July 13, 1951, displacing over a half million residents and killing 17 people.

The artist sent a lithgraph of the painting to each member of Congress with the aim of persuading them to expand a flood relief appropriations bill which ultimately did not pass.

While damage to the region was estimated at more than $1 billion, the flood relief bill was given $113 million.