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Benson in bloom: a new look at Summer

Magazine Antiques, April, 2006 by Trevor Fairbrother

Frank W. Benson was at the peak of his critical, financial, and popular success as an American impressionist when, in 1909, he painted Summer (Fig. 2). In the June issue of Harper's Monthly Magazine the prominent New York critic Charles H. Caffin praised Benson's recent paintings, observing:

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[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]</p> <pre> [He] is now preoccupied with the beauty of sunlight in its relation to landscape and to figures disposed in the freedom of the open-air environment.... All his summer work is done directly in the open air. In these latest pictures of his, children play a beautiful part. He has always been fond of painting them, [and their figures] are not merely in the landscape; they are rather an emanation of it, forms in which the sentiment of the scene is focused and interpreted. (1) </pre> <p>The article reproduced eight paintings, three of which had already been purchased by public institutions in Benson's home state: the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Worcester Art Museum, and the Malden Public Library.

Two months later, St. Nicholas, an upscale magazine for young readers, published a short introduction to the artist which began:

[FIGURES 4A-D OMITTED]</p> <pre> Hidden somewhere about Mr. Benson's studio, I am convinced, there is a little jar marked "Sunshine," into which he dips his brush when he paints his pictures of the summer. It is impossible to believe that mere paint, however cleverly laid on, can glow and shimmer and sparkle as does the golden light on his canvas. (2) </pre> <p>The title of this piece, "Vacation Days," underlined the main point, that Benson painted happy, leisurely occasions, but the closing words saluted his hard work and professional successes: "In the New York Academy exhibition of 1889 he took one of the prizes, and since then scarcely a year has passed that he has not taken one or more in various cities here or in Europe." (3)

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Summer is a grand, vibrant work, and the gilded frame (see Fig. 5) that Benson chose for it accentuated the picture's beaming assertiveness. The picture rejoices in the wholesomeness of four teenagers decorously attired in white and light blue. Their presence rivals the cheerful sunshine and the bracing sea air. The location is Wooster Cove on North Haven Island, in Maine's Penobscot Bay. In 1906 Benson purchased Wooster Farm, consisting of an old farmhouse with a dock, outbuildings, an orchard, and twenty-five acres of land. He had rented it annually since 1901, and summer scenes from the farm proved to be the artist's most lucrative subjects prior to World War I. Family times there were healthy and hearty, since the artist, his wife (nee Ellen Perry Peirson), and their four children enjoyed sailing, fishing, tennis, archery, barn dances, picnics, and clambakes.

Two of the models for Summer were the artist's daughters and two were family friends. From left to right they are Elisabeth Benson, Anna Hathaway, Eleanor Benson, and Margaret Strong. Elisabeth has picked a few flowers and she holds them up in a charmingly innocent manner. The three sitting subjects appear to be part of a circular flow of gazes and emotional bonds. The standing figure (who happens to be the senior member of the group) introduces a counterpoint with her alert seaward watch. The dignified ensemble recalls a classical statuary group, and the decorative anthemia carved on the frame reinforce that association. But Benson wanted the picture's mood to be reasonably casual, and he relied on impressionist color, light, and brushwork to bestow a gleaming breeziness throughout.

Summer had its New York debut in the spring of 1911. It was Benson's only canvas in the annual exhibition of the Ten American Painters at the Montross Gallery. The lender was Isaac C. Bates (d. 1913), a Providence collector whose interests included contemporary American painting. (4) The Ten were an independent group with a commitment to displaying their pictures in refined, uncluttered installations. A prime purveyor of impressionism, the Durand-Ruel Galleries in New York City, had presented the first exhibition of work by the Ten in 1898, and the stylish catalogue listed the founders thus: "Frank W. Benson, Joseph R. DeCamp, T. W. Dewing, Childe Hassam, Willard L. Metcalf, Robert Reid, Edward Simmons, Edmund C. Tarbell, J. H. Twachtman, and J. Alden Weir." (5)

Benson's classic impressionist works feature the sunny imagery and a spontaneous, sketchlike finish that give the style its mythic popularity today. In the late 1880s those very characteristics prompted many leading American critics to decry it as seditious or faddish. Even though Benson often painted en plein air in the 1890s, he did not embrace the lively, varied, and broad brushwork of impressionism until 1898 or 1899, roughly the moment when art schools and museums gave their official blessing to the style. It is telling that the commercial heyday of American impressionism coincided with the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909), a fervent advocate of outdoor pursuits, who, like Benson, was also a keen hunter.

Benson in bloom: a new look at Summer

Magazine Antiques, April, 2006 by Trevor Fairbrother

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