Frank W. Benson (1862-1951)

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The Winter Sale 2015

By Copley Fine Art Auctions

Feb 12, 2015 - Feb 13, 2015

Set Reminder 2015-02-12 10:00:00 2015-02-13 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : The Winter Sale 2015 https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/copley/the-winter-sale-2015-417
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• Lot Description
  
  signed and dated "F.W. Benson '26" lower left
  watercolor, 14 5/8 by 20 in.
  Frank Weston Benson, one of the Ten American Painters and a leading influence in the Boston School of American Impressionism, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on March 24, 1862. In his youth, Benson was a gifted athlete and excelled at boxing, sailing, and tennis. Growing up along the extensive marshes surrounding his native Salem, Benson learned to hunt and fish at an early age.

  Benson loved nature and birds in particular. He wanted to combine his love for birds and his love for art by pursuing a career as an ornithological illustrator in the manner of John James Audubon (1785-1851). As a child he spent many hours at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard and Benson’s mother, who was herself a painter, encouraged him in this pursuit.

  In 1880, Benson enrolled at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He studied with the school’s founding teachers, Otto Grundmann (1844-1890) and Frederick Crowninshield (1845-1918). Among his classmates were Willard Metcalf (1858-1925), William Bicknell (1860-1947), Edmund C. Tarbell (1862-1938), and Joseph Lindon Smith (1863-1950). Benson learned quickly and was recognized as a particularly gifted student. In 1882, while still attending classes at the Museum School, Benson began to teach free evening drawing classes in Salem.

  In 1885 Benson rented a painting studio in Salem. He began to exhibit at the Boston Art Club and the National Academy of Design in New York, receiving much critical acclaim and numerous awards. After his marriage to Ellen Peirson in 1888, he taught at the Boston Museum School with his friend Edmund Tarbell intermittently until 1930.

  The year 1898 was the turning point in Benson’s career. He joined a number of other leading painters from New York and Boston, including Tarbell, Childe Hassam (1859-1935), and J. Alden Weir (1852-1919) to form the Ten American Painters. This group of radical avant-garde painters, mostly working in the French Impressionist style, rejected and resigned from the National Academy and the Society of American Artists to exhibit independently and without juries. Benson exhibited in all of the Ten’s annual exhibitions, which were held for twenty years, to critical acclaim.

  This watercolor of swans displays Benson's expertise in the medium, as well as in depicting waterfowl. With its classic composition and gentle colors, this work shows the artist as his technique shifts from tighter brushwork to a style that incorporates broader, more expressive strokes. This watercolor captures the artist as he combines his masterly painting technique with his life-long passion for birds and the outdoors.
  Provenance: Ralph T. King Collection

  Private Collection, by descent in the family
  
  

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