FRANK WESTON BENSON'S YOUTH

Frank Weston Benson was born in Salem, Massachusetts on March 24, 1862. At age sixteen, Benson decided he wanted to become an artist and went to study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. For his twenty first birthday Benson received a ticket to Paris from his parents so he could enroll at the l'Académie Julian. It was here in Paris, the heart of artistic Europe, that Benson did fall in love with Impressionism. In 1888, just after his return to America, Benson married his childhood friend Ellie Pierson.

FRANK WESTON BENSON AS AN ARTIST

After Benson's return to Boston (America), he settled and became a succesful portrait painter. With Benson's paintings, he inspired many others to what would become known as the Boston School of Impressionism.

Throughout his career, Frank Weston Benson also was an art teacher, first at Portland (Maine) and later at the famous Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Benson then became a member of the American art group 'The Ten', all inspired by American Impressionism. This was when Frank Weston Benson developed his best known style, painting informal portraits of his own family and using brilliant colors and pure whites.

FRANK WESTON BENSON'S DEATH

Frank Weston Benson died in his home in Salem on November 15, 1951.