John Prentiss Benson
John Prentiss Benson (also John P. Benson) (1865–1947) was an American architect and artist noted for his maritime paintings.
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Early life
Benson was born into a prosperous family in Salem, Massachusetts. He was trained as an architect at the Académie Julian and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He was the brother of Frank Weston Benson. He married Sarah Bissell Whitman in 1893; they lived in Plainfield, New Jersey and then in Flushing, New York.[1]
Career
Upon his return from Paris, Benson was employed by McKim, Mead & White in New York City. He and Albert Leverett Brockway, a fellow architecture student from his Paris days, soon formed their own firm, Benson and Brockway.[2]
In 1922 at Benson and his wife traveled to England where he rented a studio and painted several pictures. He shipped them to New York's Kennedy Galleries, and when they sold he became a full-time painter. Benson and his wife moved to a house they called "Willowbank" on the Piscataqua River in Kittery, Maine.[3]
He is buried in the Harmony Grove Cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts.[4]
A retrospective John Benson exhibition was held in 1968 at the Peabody Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.[5]
Sources
- John Prentiss Benson — American Marine Artist, 2008, Nicholas J. Baker
- The Artistic Legacy of John Prentiss Benson. 2003, Nicholas J. Baker
- John P. Benson. American Artist (1865-1947) An Affectionate Tribute, 1949, Charles Penrose
