Frank W. Benson

Frank W. Benson was a National Academician who left that institution in 1898 to join a group of American Impressionists known as “The Ten American Painters” so that each member could exhibit independently from juries. They became the most famous of the American painters trained in Paris until Modernism replaced their popularity and academic style. Prior to 1900, Benson concentrated on portraiture and interior genres, following in the footsteps of fellow Bostonian Edmund C. Tarbell, with whom he taught painting at the Museum of Fine Arts’ school (1890-1913). After 1900 he became known as an outdoorsman who painted with expertise hunting and fishing scenes, decoys and birds. He became internationally recognized for his etchings.

Art Interchange reviewed Benson’s portraits stating they resemble Botticelli in their exquisite grace of movement and delightful color schemes, and that they place Benson “in the front rank of our painters, and reveal his possession of a graceful sentiment with which he had not been credited heretofore…the brushwork is broad and free and full of character. While painting in high key…he has not adopted the extravagance of color or crudeness of manipulation, which characterize many of the luminists, but has turned to the technique of the great painters of earlier times. His methods are both scientific and interesting, but the charm of the work lies in its imagination, its grace, its originality.” (Art Interchange, Society of American Artists, volume 36 (May 1896),  page 16).

Benson was born in Salem, MA on March 24, 1862. In 1881 he entered Boston’s Museum School (then located in Copley Square), where he studied painting with realists Otto Grundmann and Frederick Crowninshield and where he became a life long friend and colleague of impressionist Edmund C. Tarbell.  From 1883-1885, Benson and Tarbell studied in Paris at the Académie Julian with realist M. Gustave Boulanger and Joseph Lefebvre. In 1884, Benson painted with Edward Simmons, Alexander Harrison and Arthur Hoeber in Concarneau, Brittany, where he acquired a somber palette in interior genre subjects. Returning to Boston in 1886, Tarbell and Benson shared a Harcourt Studio and Benson taught at Portland’s Society of Art. In 1889, Benson and Tarbell became the directors and primary teachers at the Museum School in Boston and their students (often referred to as the “Tarbellites”) became known for impressionistic paintings held together with academic refinement. Benson and Tarbell became renown for their genteel portraits and tender genres that showed well bred young women doing every day things within interiors or outdoors.

In 1890, Benson went to Dublin, NH where he painted and was highly influenced by the work of Abbott Thayer, George deForest Brush and Rockwell Kent. In 1891, he and Tarbell were given a two-man exhibition at J. Eastman Chase’s Boston Gallery, and in 1893 he was commissioned to paint murals for the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition. After 1905 his focus changed and he painted and etched wildlife subjects and he pioneered etching wild geese and hunting scenes.

In 1896 Benson executed murals for the Library of Congress and won several medals of distinction. In 1897, he became an Associate of the National Academy and in 1898 he was a founding member of The Ten American Painters, a radical avantgarde group of American Impressionists who rejected and resigned from the National Academy and the Society of American Artists to exhibit independently without juries. In 1900, Benson was given his first one-man exhibit at the St. Botolph Club in Boston. By the end of his life, Benson was internationally recognized one of America’s most prominent painters and etchers. He was known for female portraiture, interiors genres and active wild life subjects. He was a member of many leading art clubs, was given over 40 solo exhibitions and won numerous top awards for excellence. By the time he died in 1951 in Salem, Massachusetts, Benson was revered as one of the most important American artistic figures. Many critics believe Benson’s most artistic work was completed between 1895-1909. He won awards including top honors at the Boston Art Club, Carnegie Institute, Society of American Artists and the Cleveland Art Association.  He is represented in museums including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Denver Art Museum, the Mobile Museum of Art, Yale University, National Academy of Design, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Smithsonian, the Norton Museum of Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Fogg Art Museum, the Farnsworth Art Museum, Worcester Art Museum, the Carnegie Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Portrait Gallery, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the National Gallery, the R.I. School of Design, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Library of Congress, the Terra Museum of Art, the Butler Art Institute, the Los Angeles County Museum, the High Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute, Cincinnati Art Museum, the Chrysler Museum, the White House and more. During January 2001, there were less than seven sizable oil paintings by Frank W. Benson available for purchase worldwide.