Background
Benson was born into a prosperous family in Salem, Massachusetts.
Benson was born into a prosperous family in Salem, Massachusetts.
He was trained as an architect at the Académie Julian and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He was the brother of Frank Weston Benson. Upon his return from Paris, Benson was employed by McKim, Mead & White in New York City.
He and Albert Leverett Brockway, a fellow architecture student from his Paris days, soon formed their own firm, Benson and Brockway.
He shipped them to New York"s Kennedy Galleries, and when they sold he became a full-time painter. He is buried in the Harmony Grove Cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts.
A retrospective John Benson exhibition was held in 1968 at the Peabody Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.