Frank Weston Benson (1862 – 1951) was an American artist born in 1862 in Salem, Massachusetts. His father, George Wiggin Benson, was a cotton broker and his mother, Elisabeth Poole, was from a family that founded the city of Salem and painted as an avocation. Those factors significantly influenced Frank Weston Benson’s life and career.

During his life, Benson displayed a love for the sea, a passion that grew from his relationship with his seafaring grandfather. At age 12, Frank was given a sailboat, so he used it to investigate the many waterways and marshes in the Salem area. (According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city of Salem is slightly over 18 square miles, of which over 55% is water.)

Frank Benson’s chosen career was greatly influenced by his mother’s love of painting, who he said “retreated” to a little room on the top floor of their home to paint, escaping the “rest of the world.” From his mother’s inspiration and his explorations of the waterways and wetlands surrounding Salem, Frank developed an interest in birdwatching and, for a time, thought of becoming an ornithological illustrator. (His brother was also influenced to enter a career in the arts, becoming an architect and painter.) One of Frank’s first paintings at age 16 was completed after a bird hunting trip. He called it “Rail” and it is an oil of a bird he downed with his shotgun. Whether that experience had an impact on his future paintings one can only speculate, but suffice it to say that his paintings of subsequent wildlife are all of live birds.

At the age of 18, Frank began his training in art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, Massachusetts. Three years later, Benson went to Paris to study at the Académie Julian. Afterward, returning to Massachusetts, Benson joined the staff at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where his career evolved from an instructor to the department head. While developing credentials as an outstanding art instructor, Benson became active in the American artistic movement and was a founding member of the Ten American Painters, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and The Guild of Boston Artists.

Benson’s artistic style was influenced by the likes of Claude Monet, Winslow Homer, Johannes Vermeer, and others. I believe Monet’s impressionist style had the biggest influence on Benson when their work is compared.

One is attracted to Benson’s works of his family. During the summer of 1888, Benson married, Ellen Perry Pierson, the daughter of friends and the couple had four children: Eleanor (1890), George (1891), Elisabeth (1892) and Sylvia (1898). All subjects of many of his paintings.

As already mentioned, Benson aspired to become an ornithological illustrator. Before he ventured into impressionist paintings of his family, Benson produced seascapes and landscape paintings, many of which were of birds. One of his paintings of canvasback ducks was the model for the second Federal Duck Stamp issued by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1935.

One art historian wrote that “Frank Benson painted some of the most beautiful pictures ever executed by an American artist. They are images alive with reflections of youth and optimism, projecting a way of life at once innocent and idealized and yet resonant with a sense of certain, selective realities of contemporary times.” A great example is his Moonlight on the Waters.

Frank Weston Benson also created many portraits when he opened his first studio in 1886. During his career he also created murals. Undoubtedly, Frank Weston Benson was a man of great artistic talent. Two portraits are worth noting in this post.

Frank Weston Benson lived to age 89. It is unfortunate that he did not live to witness one of his painting selling for over $4 million dollars in 1995 at Sotheby’s. Eleven years later, a watercolor painted by Benson was sold at auction for $165,002. The painting was donated to an Orgon Goodwill Industries site, the owner obviously not knowing the value of the artwork.

It is fitting to end this post with the self-portrait of the painter.

Add Frank Weston Benson to your list of great American artists.