American, 1862 - 1951
In 1880, following a public school education in Salem, Benson entered the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, School, where he studied with German artist Otto Grundmann. Fellow students included Edmund Tarbell and Robert Reid. Tarbell soon became an important friend and influence; for many years, their careers progressed along parallel lines. The two students traveled to New York and to Europe in 1883. Benson spent two years at the Acad‚mie Julian in Paris, receiving criticism from Gustave Boulanger, Jules Joseph Lefebvre, and the expatriate American, William T. Dannat. He traveled extensively on the continent and in England, and joined the summer art colony at Concarneau in Brittany. When he left France in 1885, he had not yet adopted the impressionist style which characterized his later work.
Back in the United States, Benson painted portraits and obtained a job teaching at the Portland (Maine) School of Art. In 1889, a year after his marriage to Ellen Peirson, Benson and his friend Tarbell were hired as instructors at their former school by the Museum of Fine Arts. His initial assignment was teaching the antique class. The same year, Benson exhibited for the first time at the Academy, and won the 1889 Third Hallgarten Prize. Subsequent prizes awarded to Benson by the Academy were the Clarke Prize, 1891, and the Thomas R. Proctor Prize, 1906; in 1896 he received the Society of American Artists's Shaw Fund award. Despite these New York honors, Benson remained in Boston and continued to teach at the museum school.
The 1890s saw a loosening of Benson's style and a lightening of his palette. He concentrated on easel work, but nevertheless accepted the honor of a commission for seven mural panels (The Three Graces and The Four Seasons) for the Library of Congress, which were completed in 1896.
Benson was one among the The Ten painters who formed the association of that name late in 1897 for the purpose of assuring annual exhibition of their works. The prevailing aesthetic of the group, which included Tarbell, Reid, Childe Hassam, J. Alden Weir, Willard Metcalf, Joseph De Camp, Thomas Dewing, Edward Simmons, and John Twachtman (whose place following his death was filled by William Merritt Chase), was Impressionism--to a widely varying degree among the individuals. However its intention was not the championing of that artistic movement, but objection to the unresponsiveness to the newest painting modes of the Society of American Artists exhibition selection juries; simultaneously with forming themselves into The Ten, they resigned their memberships in the Society.
An avid hunter and fisherman, Benson also began experimenting with wildlife themes. His friendship with artist-naturalist Abbott Thayer, and summers spent at his Maine farm on Penobscot Bay provided encouragement for this direction in his work. In 1912, Benson turned seriously to working in the etching medium, which he had first tried thirty years earlier, and began a "second career" in sportsmen's prints. His specialty was depicting wild ducks. He continued to exhibit these prints at the National Academy into his eightieth year.
Back in the United States, Benson painted portraits and obtained a job teaching at the Portland (Maine) School of Art. In 1889, a year after his marriage to Ellen Peirson, Benson and his friend Tarbell were hired as instructors at their former school by the Museum of Fine Arts. His initial assignment was teaching the antique class. The same year, Benson exhibited for the first time at the Academy, and won the 1889 Third Hallgarten Prize. Subsequent prizes awarded to Benson by the Academy were the Clarke Prize, 1891, and the Thomas R. Proctor Prize, 1906; in 1896 he received the Society of American Artists's Shaw Fund award. Despite these New York honors, Benson remained in Boston and continued to teach at the museum school.
The 1890s saw a loosening of Benson's style and a lightening of his palette. He concentrated on easel work, but nevertheless accepted the honor of a commission for seven mural panels (The Three Graces and The Four Seasons) for the Library of Congress, which were completed in 1896.
Benson was one among the The Ten painters who formed the association of that name late in 1897 for the purpose of assuring annual exhibition of their works. The prevailing aesthetic of the group, which included Tarbell, Reid, Childe Hassam, J. Alden Weir, Willard Metcalf, Joseph De Camp, Thomas Dewing, Edward Simmons, and John Twachtman (whose place following his death was filled by William Merritt Chase), was Impressionism--to a widely varying degree among the individuals. However its intention was not the championing of that artistic movement, but objection to the unresponsiveness to the newest painting modes of the Society of American Artists exhibition selection juries; simultaneously with forming themselves into The Ten, they resigned their memberships in the Society.
An avid hunter and fisherman, Benson also began experimenting with wildlife themes. His friendship with artist-naturalist Abbott Thayer, and summers spent at his Maine farm on Penobscot Bay provided encouragement for this direction in his work. In 1912, Benson turned seriously to working in the etching medium, which he had first tried thirty years earlier, and began a "second career" in sportsmen's prints. His specialty was depicting wild ducks. He continued to exhibit these prints at the National Academy into his eightieth year.
