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Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
FRANK W. BENSON Moonlight.
Etching and drypoint, 1914. 174x225 mm; 7x8 7/8 inches, full margins. Signed and numbered 4/50 in pencil, lower margin. A superb impression of this very scarce and early etching. Paff 31.
Benson (1862-1951) was a prominent American Impressionist whose sought-after portraits and plein-air scenes provided him professional success during his career. As a founding member of the Ten American Painters, a prestigious group of early American Impressionists whose members also included Childe Hassam and John Henry Twachtman, he helped spearhead the exhibition of a new style of painting of which the Society of American Artists disapproved.
Later in life Benson turned to etching, and in 1915 he hosted his first exhibition of prints that depicted waterfowl and hunters, a change from his usual subjects of women and children. The success of the show led him in a new artistic direction, and during the later part of his career he created over 350 etchings of hunting and wildlife scenes,crediting him with expanding the genre of the American sporting print.
