Frank Weston Benson
(1862-1951)

---

Acknowledged as a leader of what has come to be known as the Boston School of painting, Frank Benson's impressionistic canvases of young women and children established him as one of the most admired painters of his day, one who also excelled as an etcher, watercolorist, muralist, and teacher. A lifelong resident of Salem, Massachusetts, Benson kept a studio in Boston, and spent summers with his family (who often served as subjects in his paintings) in North Haven, Maine, where he had the time to pursue the outdoor activities he loved. Benson, an avid hunter and fisherman, produced sporting and wildlife scenes there that became as sought after as his sparkling scenes of children in sunlit outdoor leisure settings. Characterized by a bright palette and broken brushwork, Benson's works whether executed in oil, watercolor, or pastel exemplify the Impressionist aesthetic and came to influence the generation of artists that followed him, many of whom studied under him (or his colleague Edmund Tarbell) at Boston's School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Benson also broke ground as a founding member of The Ten American Painters, a group seeking to exhibit in more intimate, aesthetically cohesive settings, rather than at the mammoth exhibitions of wide-ranging subjects and styles that were standard at the time.