The Sporting Art of Frank W. Benson Review

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The Sporting Art of Frank W. Benson ReviewThe Maine Antique Digest (Sam Pennington, Editor mad@maine.com) wrote this neat review and I am sharing it with everyone who might want to know more about this great book.
This handsomely produced, definitive book is replete with reproductions of paintings, etchings, and lithographs of waterfowl and related works of Frank W. Benson, a pivotal artist of the American Impressionist movement. Benson's accurate depictions of birds have commanded high prices, and rightly so. This book will be an invaluable addition to the libraries of art collectors.
Faith Andrews Bedford gathered diverse and firsthand source material. She covers Benson's career by melding his primary interests: his family, his art, and the sporting life, not to mention his lifelong passion for birds. By interlacing her text with commentary from interviews with Benson's family, diaries, letters, photographs, and historical articles, she creates a lively, immediate flavor.
Chapter three, "A Sense of Place," begins by telling how the Benson family first visited North Haven island in Maine's Penobscot Bay in June 1901. They eventually bought Wooster Farm and summered there for about 40 years. I have a particular fondness for that island and was transported by the descriptions of their initial visits and their farm on Crabtree Point. To exemplify how neatly Bedford packs information, here is a quote from early in that chapter: "Benson's North Haven paintings of his family were praised by critics and collectors for capturing the `joyous gaiety' and `holiday mood' of life on the island. They sold almost as soon as they were seen by the public...Benson was not an indoor man by nature and far preferred the `life outside the studio.' Although his wife and daughters enjoyed the theater and music and for decades held the same two seats for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he did not often accompany them. Nor did he enjoy the confines of church. He felt the place to worship God and respect His handiwork was through nature."
There is mention also of their tennis court at the farm, interest in golf, and of course the birds and fishing. Bedford adds other significant information about how the island affected Benson's art: "It was to become the site of many milestones, not only in his family life but in his art as well. Benson began his etching career on North Haven. Originally, this aspect of his work was merely a diversion, an experiment." This taste gives an inkling of the abundant information compiled. It is clearly presented and a good biographical resource.
Benson lived a long, fruitful life. Bedford, who has become a scholar capable of making such statements, says, "Benson was, perhaps, that rarest of humans, a happy man. Not that he ever rested on his laurels, not that he did not look constantly for challenges...He had reaped rewards and financial success from his art, had won fame and recognition in his own lifetime-something he realized few artists ever achieved...In Benson's own words, the secret to both tranquil enjoyment and success was in doing what you love."The Sporting Art of Frank W. Benson OverviewFrank Benson, a pivotal artist of the American Impressionist movement had, it would seem, three great loves in his long and productive life: his family, his art, and the sporting life. As a boy, Benson dreamed of being an ornithological illustrator. In mid-life, after an extremely successful career as a portraitist and painter of plein air canvases, he returned to the wildfowl and sporting subjects that were his lifelong passion. Over the next forty years, in etching, lithography, watercolor, and oil and wash, he portrayed birds beloved since childhood, scenes of his hunting and fishing expeditions, and still lives of incomparable delicacy. Whether painting a hunter setting out decoys, a wash of geese by moonlight, a watercolor of a companion poised to gaff a salmon, or an etching of a group of ducks silently gliding in for a landing, Benson conveyed the joy and beauty of a sportsman's life.This is the first book to concentrate on the aspect of Benson's career that won him both national and international renown as well as financial prosperity. Written by Faith Andrews Bedford, who also wrote the definitive monograph on his career, it draws on a rich store of family memories, diaries, letters and archives to create an intimate portrait of a man who was not only a successful artist but a consummate sportsman. From Benson's student days at the Boston Museum School, where he eventually became a teacher and director, to his frequent trips to his farm house on Cape Cod, where he spent countless days hunting, fishing, and sketching; from his annual salmon fishing trips to his many shooting expeditions in Canada, the Atlantic coast, the American South and the Rockies, this book touches on every aspect of his life and art. When he died in 1951, Benson had garnered every award of his day, the respect of his peers, and the admiration and affection of a devoted public. Here is a book that presents his sporting art, and his life, in all its forms and rich variety. We offer it with pride and enthusiasm.

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