Benson received his first art training at the newly founded School of the Museum of Fine Arts (now known as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University) in Boston from 1880 to 1883.
Career
Achievements
Self-Portrait of Frank Weston Benson.
Membership
Society of American Artists
1888 - 1898
In 1888 Frank Benson joined the Society of American Artists, which he left in 1898.
National Academy of Design
1897
In 1897 Benson became an associate of the National Academy of Design, New York, and achieved his full membership status in 1905.
American Academy of Arts and Letters
1898
Benson became a founding member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1898.
Guild of Boston Artists
1914
In 1914 Benson became a co-founder of The Guild of Boston Artists.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1926
Frank Benson was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the year 1926.
Benson received his first art training at the newly founded School of the Museum of Fine Arts (now known as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University) in Boston from 1880 to 1883.
Frank Weston Benson, or Frank W. Benson, was an American artist and educator. He was generally known as a representative of the style of Impressionism. Over the course of his career, Benson created plenty of Realistic portraits, American Impressionist paintings, watercolours and etchings of wildfowl and landscapes. He was associated with the group of painters known as the Ten.
Background
Benson was born on March 24, 1862, in Salem, Massachusetts, United States, into a prosperous seafaring family. He was the son of George Wiggin Benson, a successful cotton merchant, and Elisabeth Poole. Frank Benson was the second of six children in the family. He had two sisters, Georgianna Marie Benson and Elisabeth Benson, and three brothers, John Prentiss Benson, Henry Perkins Benson, Arthur Fitch Benson.
His grandfather was Captain Samuel Benson, who sailed all over the world and brought back many exotic treasures from the Far East, heirlooms that later appeared in Frank Benson 's artworks.
Education
Frank Benson grew up in privileged circumstances; he was actively engaged in a variety of sports like tennis, fishing, and hunting, which he enjoyed for the rest of his life. He spent nearly all of his weekends hunting or fishing in the fields, marshes and streams. Benson's father even gave his son a shotgun and taught him how to hunt shorebirds along the North Shore and wildfowl in the local fields and swamps. Benson obtained his admiration of the sea from his grandfather. When he was only 12, he was given his personal sailboat in which he explored the waterways and swamps and raced against his siblings.
A passionate birdwatcher and wildfowl hunter, Frank Benson wanted to be an ornithological illustrator. At the age of 16, he created the painting Rail, one of his first oil artworks, after one of his hunting trips.
Benson received his first art training at the newly founded School of the Museum of Fine Arts (now known as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University) in Boston from 1880 to 1883. There he met fellow artists and his life-long friends, Edmund Charles Tarbell, Joseph Lindon Smith and Robert Reid.
On Frank Benson's 21st birthday his parents gave him a gift of $2,000 to study in Europe. As a result, in 1883 he travelled to Paris and studied at the Académie Julian (today part of ESAG Penninghen) under the direction of Gustave Boulanger, William Turner Dannat, and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre. During his French years, Benson produced copies of Old Master paintings at the Louvre and spent summers in the country. During the summer of 1884, he visited Concarneau, Brittany, where he met such American painters as Arthur Hoeber, Alexander Harrison, and Edward Simmons, and was extremely influenced by their gloomy palettes and genre subject matter. He completed his studies there in 1885.
Benson first became exposed to Impressionism, a new and radical form of art that would later define him as an artist, in Paris. In his early oeuvre, the artist was "deeply influenced" by Johannes Vermeer and Diego Velázquez, masters from the seventeenth century. Claude Monet's works played a particular role in the development of Frank Benson's own American Impressionistic style.
Upon his return to the United States in 1886, Frank Benson worked for some time in Salem, Massachusetts, the town in which he later settled. During 1886 and 1887 he was an instructor of drawing and painting at the Portland (Maine) School of Art (today Maine College of Art). Concurrently, he opened his first studio in Salem in 1886 with his friend, Phillip Little, and started to create portraits.
The artist took a Boston studio in 1888 together with Edmund Charles Tarbell. He received favorable attention in his first showing at the Society of American Artists in New York. In 1889 he began to teach at the Boston Museum School (later School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University) and in 1890 became head of the Painting department.
The school's reputation started to grow and its enrollment tripled under the direction of Philip Hale, Frank Benson and Edmund Charles Tarbell. Students were assessed on the basis of their skills and placed at the appropriate level (from low to high). Philip Hale had a class for beginners, Frank Benson focused on how to depict figures whereas Edmund Tarbell concentrated on still lifes. Benson, called "Cher Maitre" ("Dear Master") by his students, was deeply respected in the school and taught there until 1913. Among his most prominent pupils were the portraitist Marie Danforth Page and the miniaturist Bertha Coolidge.
While teaching Benson also received wide recognition as a painter. At the suggestion of his friend, Joseph Lindon Smith, Frank Benson spent several summers in Dublin from 1889 till 1893, where he painted with Abbott Thayer. Benson painted many views of Mount Monadnock and the surrounding countryside during these trips. Thayer and Benson often fished together and their enormous love of wildlife frequently figured in their correspondence and paintings.
By the early 1890s, he had started to use his family as subjects. The artist later recalled it was then that he realized that design was the most important component of painting. Between 1893 and 1900 Benson spent his summers in New Castle, New Hampshire, where executed such paintings as Children in the Woods and The Sisters. After New Castle, the artist started to spend his summers on North Haven Island in Penobscot Bay in Maine at Wooster Farm. There Frank Benson produced Impressionist artworks of his family at Wooster Farm en plein air. The summer home provided a great view of the bay and surrounding area. In 1896 he provided decorations for seven ceiling and wall panels in the Library of Congress.
In 1898 Frank Benson and nine other artists including Childe Hassam, William Merritt Chase, Thomas Dewing, and J. Alden Weir formed the Ten American Painters. They held annual exhibitions of their paintings in New York City and often showed in other cities like Boston, and became known as the American Impressionists. The principles of Impressionism started to dominate his work by 1901.
Benson began etching in 1914, considering it an interesting pastime. In 1915 the first exhibition of his etchings and drypoints took place. Benson turned increasingly to the depiction of landscapes featuring wildlife, an outgrowth of his interest in hunting and fishing. So many variations of this subject were produced over the next decade that some accused the artist of being commercially repetitive.
Beginning around 1919, Frank Benson began his work on a series of true still lifes. Many of these handsome tabletop arrangements, composed of objects gathered by Benson’s seafaring ancestors on their trips to the East countries, have found homes in America's major museums. These candlesticks, porcelains, Oriental screens, and embroidered silk tablecloths have been used by the artist to create a number of attractive compositions.
Frank Benson started to paint watercolours during his Canadian fishing trip in 1921. Benson enjoyed this kind of painting so much that he managed to produce more than 500 watercolours in his lifetime, and in the last years of his artistic career, his watercolour landscapes were much in demand.
Benson maintained his connection with the Boston Museum School as a member of the Advisory Council until 1930, when he resigned. Retrospective exhibitions of his work were held at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C., in 1921 and, jointly with Tarbell, in 1938 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Besides, at the request of fellow artist and conservationist Jay Norwood "Ding" Darling, Frank Benson designed the second Federal Duck Stamp in 1935.
Benson, who had a studio in Boston and, at various times, summer houses in Maine and Cape Cod, eventually retired to his home in Salem, Massachusetts. The artist spent the latter part of his life sketching waterfowl on his beloved North Shore.
Achievements
Frank Benson is considered to be an outstanding American master. He received acclaim as a teacher, a portraitist, and a painter of wildlife. He was also one of the leaders of The Ten, a significant group of American Impressionists.
His paintings of women and children in sunlit meadows and hillsides made Impressionism a major style of painting in America. These artworks are among the most beloved American Impressionist canvases even today. Benson is also well-known for his paintings, etchings, and watercolours of sporting subjects, especially of fishing and hunting.
Frank Benson's fame and financial success lasted throughout his professional life. He was one of the most popular painters of his time, and today his artworks are widely reproduced and considered among the most beautiful paintings in American public and private collections.
In the 1890s, the artist started to receive his first awards, including the Hallgarten Prize from the National Academy in New York for Orpheus in 1890, the Thomas B. Clark Prize also from the National Academy in 1891, and the Shaw Fund Prize from the Society of American Artists in 1896.
After the turn of the century, Benson won awards for his Impressionist paintings. For instance, in 1900 he received the Silver Medal from the Paris Exposition Universelle for The Sisters; in 1903 the Carnegie Prize in Pittsburgh; and in 1906 the Thomas R. Proctor Prize from the National Academy; later he also was awarded the Henry Ward Ranger Fund prize for Still Life, which is now at the National Museum of American Art.
In 1914 the Boston Transcript called Frank Benson "America's Most Medalled Painter."
His wildlife watercolours and etchings won awards in the 1920s and 1930s, including the Frank G Logan prize for Still Life in 1922 and the Frank G Logan prize in 1924.
Some of Benson's artworks were sold at various auctions. To date, the highest price brought at auction for an oil painting by the artist is $4.1 million, realized at Sotheby's in 1995.
On October 19, 2006, a watercolour painting by Frank Benson was sold at auction for $165,002. The painting was anonymously donated to an Oregon Goodwill Industries site, most likely without the owner knowing of its value. Bidding on the shopgoodwill.com website started at $10, and increased after the painting was authenticated.
The Benson Family at Wooster Farm, North Haven, Maine
Eleanor Holding a Shell
Child with a Seashell
Two Little Girls
Portrait of Jane Shattuck
Portrait of a Model - Mary Sullivan
Eleanor in the Dory
Lady Trying on a Hat (the Black Hat)
Four Children at North Haven
Calm Morning
Girl with Pink Bow
The Artist's Daughters
Atherton Loring Jr. Age 6 of Boston's Duxbury, Massachusetts
Eleanor in the Pines
Girl on the Headland
Rainy Day
Portrait of My Daughters
Laddie
Girl Playing Solitaire
Elizabeth and Anna
Margaret ("gretchen") Strong
Katharine Gray Dodge
Against the Sky
Religion
As a child, Benson was obliged to attend Episcopal church services every week. He would later join the Unitarian Church but always described himself as a "wedding and funeral" type of churchgoer.
Views
Quotations:
"The more a painter knows about his subject, the more he studies and understands it, the more the true nature of it is perceived by whoever looks at it, even though it is extremely subtle and not easy to see or understand. A painter must search deeply into the aspects of a subject, must know and understand it thoroughly before he can represent it well."
"The whole process from the bare plate to the finished print is full of fascinating possibilities and possible failures."
"I may have taught many students, but it was I who learned the most."
"A picture is merely an experiment in design. If the design is pleasing, the picture is good, no matter whether composed of objects, still life, figures or birds. Few appreciate that what makes them admire a picture is the design made by the painter."
"A man’s best chance to produce something which will please others is to represent as faithfully as he can what pleases him, in the way he likes it best."
"The only fun in life is trying hard to do something you can't quite accomplish. There is no real fun in accomplishing some definite fixed thing."
"The only way to learn to paint is to paint, No matter how dissatisfied you are with what you have done, you learn something. No one can tell you things which you must learn from experience."
"My belief lies in this direction - that you should learn absolutely to see the thing truly as it exists, and then use that knowledge as you like. A man should use his knowledge of this and express himself according to his inclination, but beneath everything should be the solid foundation of reality."
"Drawing is only learned by long hard practice. You can't learn it quickly, and you won't learn it quickly."
"A picture or drawing is like a poem, when the poet starts, he has no more and no different words to work with then you have. A work of art is made by his choice - selection and combination of ordinary material. Each man sees a subject differently and selects different things in it to emphasize."
Membership
Frank Benson was a member of numerous organizations. In 1888 he joined the Society of American Artists, which he left in 1898. In 1897 he became an associate of the National Academy of Design, New York, and achieved his full membership status in 1905. Benson became a founding member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1898.
In 1914 Benson became a co-founder of The Guild of Boston Artists. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the year 1926.
Society of American Artists
,
United States
1888 - 1898
National Academy of Design
,
United States
1897
American Academy of Arts and Letters
,
United States
1898
Guild of Boston Artists
,
United States
1914
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
,
United States
1926
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Dean Lahikainen: "Benson was a unique artist, in that he had mastered so many different mediums and subjects. And from his early works right until the very end, light is what he was interested in."
Interests
Artists
Johannes Vermeer, Diego Velázquez, Claude Monet, Winslow Homer, Abbott Thayer
Connections
Benson became engaged to the daughter of his friends from Salem, Massachusetts, Ellen Perry Peirson. The couple married in 1888 when Benson had established himself in his artistic career. The marriage produced four children: Eleanor (born 1890), George (born 1891), Elisabeth (born 1892) and Sylvia (born 1898).
Father:
George Wiggin Benson
Mother:
Elizabeth Frost Benson (Poole)
Spouse:
Ellen Perry Benson
Grandfather:
Samuel Benson
Brother:
John Prentiss Benson
John Prentiss Benson (1865-1947) was an American architect and artist well-known for his maritime artworks.
Sister:
Georgianna Marie Benson
Brother:
Henry Perkins Benson
Brother:
Arthur Fitch Benson
Sister:
Elisabeth Benson
Daughter:
Eleanor Benson
Son:
George Benson
Daughter:
Elizabeth Benson
Daughter:
Sylvia Benson
References
Frank W. Benson: American Impressionist
This first full-scale monograph on Benson's entire career, summarizes his progress from his early promise as a young art student at the Academie Julian in Paris to his leading role as a teacher, portraitist, and painter in Boston and New England.
2002
The Sporting Art of Frank W. Benson
This is the first book to concentrate on the aspect of Benson's career that won him both national and international renown as well as financial prosperity.
2000
Impressionist Summers: Frank W. Benson's North Haven
A beautifully illustrated book devoted to Impressionist Frank W. Benson’s life and work in Maine, where he spent summers creating the sun-drenched paintings that define American plein-air painting.
Frank W. Benson the Impressionist Years
This 74-page catalogue includes essays by Sheila Dugan, William H. Gerdts, and John Wilmerding. In addition to color illustrations of the twelve works in the show, there are ten color and twenty-two black and white reproductions.
