Fletcher Benton

Fletcher Benton (born February 25, 1931 Jackson, Ohio) is a kinetic artist from San Francisco, California.[1]

Life
Folded Square D, Offenbach/Germany, 1981

He graduated from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1956.[2] From 1964 to 1967 he taught at the San Francisco Art Institute and taught as an associate professor and then professor of art at San Jose State University from 1967-1986.

Fletcher Benton is known for his kinetic sculptures which are sculptures that move. [3] But, he began his career as an abstractionist painter in the 1950s and 1960s. Frustrated with the limitations of paint on canvas, Benton began work on movement with geometric pattern pieces and boxes which he was familiar with from his work in commercial signs. This was at the beginning of the kinetic movement, and Benton worked largely in isolation, unaware of other efforts of kinetic artists. The early works were more concerned with change, rather than movement.[4] The pieces were really more like three-dimensional paintings. Full three-dimensional sculptures designed to be viewed from all angles came later and the movement of the pieces became less prevalent in his later works. In the late 1970s, he abandoned kinetic art, switching to a more traditional bronze and steel.[5]

His work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Stanford Museum of Art, Hirschhorn Museum, the Denver Art Museum,[6] and the DeCordova Sculpture Museum.[7]

Awards

In 2008, Fletcher Benton was a recipient of the International Sculpture Center's Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award.[8]

Footnotes

1. ^ http://www.artofnote.org/Benton.html
2. ^ http://www.jeanalbanogallery.com/benton/#Anchor-Luciana-49575
3. ^ http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/spark/profile.jsp?essid=22453
4. ^ [From a museum show catalog entitled: Fletcher Benton, Selected Works 1964-1974, copyright De Saisset Art Gallery and museum, University of Santa Clara]
5. ^ http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/spark/profile.jsp?essid=22453
6. ^ http://groundsforsculpture.org/c_fbento.htm?phpMyAdmin=rx8QRmkftsxKCJORMPMdrElzfme
7. ^ http://www.decordova.org/Decordova/sculp_park/benton.htm
8. ^ International Sculpture Center website. 'Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award page'. Retrieved 24 January 2010.