Frank Weston Benson

Benson, Frank W.

American, 1862 - 1951

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American painter (1862–1951)

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Still Life

Frank Weston Benson · 1925 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2015.19.49

Frank Weston Benson, Frederick T. Reynolds, Chicago Society of Etchers, Flying Ducks, 1919, etching in black, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.1457

Flying Ducks

Frank Weston Benson, Frederick T. Reynolds, Chicago Society of Etchers · 1919 · etching in black ·  Accession ID  1943.3.1457

Frank Weston Benson, Untitled (Elizabeth), c. 1918, etching, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.854

Untitled (Elizabeth)

Frank Weston Benson · c. 1918 · etching ·  Accession ID  2008.115.854

Frank Weston Benson, The Open Window, 1917, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase), 2015.19.11

The Open Window

Frank Weston Benson · 1917 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2015.19.11

Shown from the waist up, a young woman with pale skin, wearing a wide-brimmed, floppy hat, looks off to our left in this vertical portrait painting. Warm light falls across the woman from our right, throwing the left side of her face into shadow. The straw hat has a rounded crown with a black band around the base. The front and the side of the wide brim to our left are turned up, and it flattens out behind her head and long neck. The woman’s shoulders are angled slightly to our left and she looks in that direction with hazel brown eyes. A faint blush brightens her smooth cheeks, and she has a short nose, a pointed chin, and her full, rose-pink lips are closed. Soft, light brown hair is pulled back and is twisted or braided in a long plait over her right shoulder, to our left, and tied with a black bow. Wispy tendrils fall around her face and down the back of her neck, to our right. Her cream-white garment has puffed sleeves that are pushed up to or gathered at her elbow. A long necklace of the same color white hangs down her chest. Her left arm, to our right, is bent at the elbow as she holds the cord of a window shade. A ring dangles from the end of the cord, near the lower right corner of the painting. Her other hand presumably rests on or near her hip, which is out of our view, but that elbow is bent to the side. The background is mottled with elephant gray and ash brown. The portrait is loosely painted in some areas, especially in the woman’s clothing and the background. The artist signed the work in the lower left corner: “F.W. Benson.”
Frank Weston Benson, My Daughter, 1912, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2015.19.6

My Daughter

Frank Weston Benson · 1912 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2015.19.6

A pale-skinned woman wearing a long dress sits on a golden-brown grassy hillside in this vertical portrait painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes throughout. The hill creates a steep diagonal angling down from near the top left corner to the right edge, just over the lower corner there. The woman sits with her knees facing us as she looks up and off to our left in profile. She is lit from our right so her face is in shadow, but she has delicate features. The light warms her copper-red hair, which is tied with a bow at the back of her neck. Her ice-blue dress has a high collar, long sleeves, and a full skirt that puddles in the grass. She rests her left arm, to our right, across her midsection, and holds her other hand just over the grass. White flowers dot the hillside, which slopes down a single tree in the near distance along the right edge of the canvas. Ultramarine-blue water beyond ripples back to a flat-topped, smoky-mauve outcropping. A sliver of oyster-white sky lines the horizon, which comes almost to the top of this composition. The artist signed the painting in the lower left corner, “F.W. Benson.”
Frank Weston Benson, Margaret ("Gretchen") Strong, c. 1909, oil on canvas, Gift of Elizabeth Clarke Hayes, 1992.66.1

Margaret ("Gretchen") Strong

Frank Weston Benson · c. 1909 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1992.66.1

Frank Weston Benson, Portrait in White, 1889, oil on canvas, Gift of Sylvia Benson Lawson, 1977.4.1

Portrait in White

Frank Weston Benson · 1889 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1977.4.1

Frank Weston Benson, Turnstones, etching, Gift of Mrs. Jane C. Carey in memory of her mother, Mrs. Addie Burr Clark, 1951.13.4

Turnstones

Frank Weston Benson · · etching ·  Accession ID  1951.13.4

Frank Weston Benson, High Flying Ducks, etching, Gift of Mrs. Jane C. Carey in memory of her mother, Mrs. Addie Burr Clark, 1951.13.2

High Flying Ducks

Frank Weston Benson · · etching ·  Accession ID  1951.13.2

Frank Weston Benson, Swinging In, drypoint, Gift of John W. Beatty, Jr., 1964.4.3

Swinging In

Frank Weston Benson · · drypoint ·  Accession ID  1964.4.3

Bibliography

1925

  • Salaman, Malcolm C. Modern Masters of Etching: Frank W. Benson. London, 1925.

1938

  • Frank W. Benson; Edmund C. Tarbell: Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Prints. Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1938.

1976

  • Pierce, Patricia Jobe. The Ten. Hingham, Massachusetts, 1976.

1988

  • Wilmerding, John, Sheila Dugan, and William Gerdts. Frank W. Benson: The Impressionist Years. Exh. cat. Spanierman Gallery, New York, 1988.

1994

  • Bedford, Faith Andrews. Frank W. Benson: American Impressionist. New York, 1994.

1996

  • Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 25.