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Oil Paintings of Bermuda Interest
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Benson, John Prentiss (1865 – 1947)
“The Treasure Ship”
Oil on canvas
Signed lower left, “John P. Benson, Bermuda, 1924,” and further, the canvas stamped on verso “Bermuda 1924”
22“ x 27” (55.88cm x 68.58cm)
Provenance: A New York City Collection
Biography
John Prentiss Benson was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in February 1865, just two months before the Civil War ended. He was the third of six children born to George Wiggin Benson and Elisabeth Poole Benson between 1859 and 1872. Georgiana, the oldest, was followed by four boys – Frank, John, Henry (Harry), and Arthur. John’s father was a cotton merchant in nearby Boston and the family lived comfortably in the big white house on Washington Square in Salem. From an early age the Benson children were exposed to the cultural and social life of Salem and they all attended classes at an Art Club, Drawing Club, and Cooking Club. The Benson boys, who were curious and observant by nature, lived only a short walk from Salem’s harbor and wharves. Ships of all descriptions and nationalities frequented the harbor, off-loading such exotic cargo as ivory, tea, wine, silk, and Chinese porcelains, and this gave the Benson boys unlimited novelties to explore.
Artistic talent surfaced early in the Benson family fostered in part by Elisabeth’s own abilities. Her oldest son, Frank, recalled that his mother had “a little room” on the top floor of their house where she would go to paint and “forget about the rest of the world” and when he announced his decision to become an artist, he was given his parents’ blessing. John, however, did not receive the same parental support. Family members like to repeat the anecdote that when John announced that he, too, wished to become an artist, he was told very firmly that one artist in the family was quite enough. He would need to find another profession in which to make his way in the world.
John elected to become an architect. Like his brother Frank, John knew that studying in Paris was necessary for success. He traveled to Paris in 1886, where he enrolled in L’Academie Julian and studied at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts. When he returned to America in 1889, he quickly found employment at McKim, Mead & White in New York City. His tenure with that firm lasted just a few months because he and a fellow architect from his Paris days, Albert Leverett Brockway, formed their own firm, Benson and Brockway. Eventually both men became independent architects, but they continued to collaborate professionally and as friends.
John Benson married Sarah Bissell Whitman in 1893, and the young couple settled in Plainfield, New Jersey where they had three children. In 1904 the family moved to Flushing, New York, to a handsome shingle house on the corner of Fox Lane and Bowne Avenue. The youngest child, a daughter, was born in 1905.
Although he earned his living as an architect, John Benson never abandoned his dream of being an artist. Images of ships and the sea from his boyhood days in Salem stayed fresh in his mind’s eye, and whenever he could find spare time, he turned to his beloved paints, brushes, and blank canvases with pleasure. In 1904 he dabbled in publishing graphic works in the comic supplements, possibly as an early attempt to earn a living as an artist, but the experiment was not successful.
On the occasion of his 56th birthday in 1921, John Benson’s youngest daughter recalled her father’s receiving a telegram from his brother Frank that said, “John, if you are going to paint – PAINT!” The cable itself has long since been lost, but its message was unforgettable and it was just the catalyst John needed. Over the ensuing months, John began to phase out his practice as an architect, and in 1922-23, he and Bessie spent the winter in England where he rented a studio and painted seven or eight pictures. He sent them back to the United States, to the well-known Kennedy Galleries in New York City, where six paintings sold immediately.
He never looked back. The following year, in 1924, John and Bessie spent the winter in Bermuda, and then, after selling their Flushing home in 1925 the Bensons bought a large, white house on the banks of the Piscataqua River in Kittery, Maine. Across the street from this home known as “Willowbank”, John had a studio. He kept careful records in three logbooks of the work he produced while in Maine. It is certain that he painted more than 500 canvases during his years in Kittery, and likely that there are many others for which dates are unknown. His work was exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, where he was a frequent contributor to shows sponsored by the Guild of Boston Artists. Visitors purchased many of his paintings on the spot at his studio in Kittery.
John Benson painted right up to the time of his death in November 1947, at the age of 82. He died at home, in Willowbank, and is buried in Salem, beside his beloved Bessie, at Harmony Grove Cemetery. A memorial exhibition of his works was held in 1948 by the Guild of Boston Artists, and twenty years later, in 1968, a retrospective exhibition was held at the Peabody Museum in Salem.
Museums
- Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts
- Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine
- Kittery Historical/Naval Museum in Kittery, Maine
- Mobile Museum of Art in Mobile, Alabama
- Museum of Art (RISD) in Providence, Rhode Island
- Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio
- Osterville Free Library in Osterville, Massachusetts
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts
Exhibitions
- Corcoran Gallery, Washington DC
- National Academy of Design, New York, New York
- Society of Independent Artists
Auction History
- The auction high record price was set in 2005 at Sotheby’s New York. In Bermuda Waters (1925, 30” x 36”) sold for $21,600.
Book References
- The Artist Legacy of John Prentiss Benson Volume I, II and II, edited by Nicholas J. Baker, 2003, 2005, 2007
- John Prentiss Benson: American Marine Artist, by Nicholas J. Baker and Margaret M. Bette, 2008
- John P. Benson, American , 1865-1947; An Affectionate Tribute by American Newcoman, by Charles Penrose, 1949
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BIDDLE, George (1885 – 1973)
“My Mother (In a Garden, Bermuda)”
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right: Biddle 1919
40 x 40 inches (101.6cm. x 101.6cm.)
Biography
George Biddle was born in 1885 to a prominent Philadelphia family. To please his family Biddle first received a law degree from Harvard University and was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1911 before pursuing his career in art. Biddle studied in Paris at the Académie Julian in 1911 and enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1912. Biddle then spent an extended period in Europe, first studying printmaking in Munich in 1914–1915 then in Paris from the spring of 1915 through 1916. Mary Cassatt, a close friend of the Biddle family, guided Biddle’s artistic development while he was in France and was a major influence on Biddle’s early style. Biddle spent the summers of 1915 and 1916 with the American expatriate artist Frederick Carl Frieseke in Giverny, France. Giverny was an artist colony made famous by Claude Monet who lived in the area from 1883 until his death in 1926. Frieseke’s home was next door to Monet’s which Biddle mentions in his memoir An American Artist’s Story:
One watched old Claude Monet over his garden wall, as he tramped about among his fruit trees, or sat contentedly on a canvas stool in front of the little wooden bridge that spanned his water lilies, or superintended the new studio on the upper road, through the north windows of which in 1916 one saw with amazement high up on the wall the yards and yards – the acres – of blue water lilies which were the grand, but aged, artist’s conception of a mural.
From Paris, Biddle sent his first painting for exhibition to American museum invitationals in 1916. That year his work was accepted for exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the National Academy of Design in New York, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. In 1917 Biddle returned to Philadelphia where he established a studio and began to exhibit his work, including an exhibition of prints at the Philadelphia Print Club. Biddle put his artistic career on hold, however, when the US declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917. He entered training in May and was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the infantry by August. Biddle served in France for nearly two years before returning to Philadelphia in April 1919. Biddle’s time in Philadelphia in 1919 was brief as he spent the summer in Bermuda with his family. There he found a peaceful place where he could recover from the war and find his creativity again. In Bermuda Biddle began to paint for the first time since he joined the war effort in 1917. In the artist’s registry Biddle notes that all work done in 1919 was created in Bermuda. The artist’s well-organized registry shows that paintings with inventory numbers from 41 to 60 were created in Bermuda. His Bermuda subjects were executed in an Impressionist style and had titles such as: Under a Royal Poinciana Tree, Isles of Bermuda, Fishes of Bermuda, My Mother, and Cliffs of Southern Bermuda. My Mother (or The Artist’s Mother) is marked with inventory number 49. In the fall of 1919 Biddle set up a studio in New York where he completed the paintings for his first solo exhibition at Milch Gallery, which opened in February 1920. The exhibition was predominantly Bermuda subjects as mentioned in The New York Times on February 8, 1920. Biddle also selected a Bermuda subject Isles of Bermuda as his submission to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ annual exhibition in 1920. In May 1920 Biddle traveled to Tahiti where he spent nearly two years painting the local people and their culture. His Tahitian paintings done in a Post-Impressionist style were exhibited at Milch Gallery in December 1920 and Wildenstein Gallery in December 1922. Biddle continued to be a successful artist throughout his life. He was a great help to other artists when he developed the WPA program to support artists during The Great Depression. During the 1930s and 1940s Biddle’s style of realism was referred to as American Scene painting.
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KAUFMANN, John (1937 – )
Biography
 John Kaufmann is the doyen of present-day Bermudian impressionist landscape painters. The amazing thing is that by the early 1950s, his impressionist style of painting was already well developed. I say amazing, because at that time he was only a young teenager and although his style has continued to develop, he has been stylistically consistent throughout his artistic career. His development therefore has continued but in micro-increments only. He keeps getting better but that is relative; he was impressively accomplished as a teenager. Best known as an oil painter, his subject matter tends to landscape, especially Bermudian beach scenes and seascapes, although he has occasionally painted still-lifes. In recent years Kaufmann has been influenced by the Paris-based Chinese abstract impressionist Zao Wou-Ki and experimented with a greater degree of abstraction in his landscapes. At the same time has he also explored, with much success, the use of acrylic paints.
When the history of Bermudian art is written, John Kaufmann’s art will be seen as an important step in the maturation of local painting. There is a qualitative leap from the tendency of our artists to make souvenir art to, in Kaufmann’s case, create something not only much finer but which has a completely different purpose. While dealing with the same subject matter, Kaufmann’s art is a more abstract rendering of the Bermuda landscape. Indeed, John Kaufmann sees his paintings as expressions of infinity.
This retrospective represents 60 years of painting Bermuda, ranging from the modest John Smith’s Bay (1947) painted when he was 10 to the epic sweep of Church Bay, Evening (2007). As fellow Bermudian artist Georgine Hill has said of his work: “Through his landscapes he captures the true spirit and character of “old” Bermuda. He interprets the natural beauty of Bermuda that allows us to appreciate our environment even more. Each painting is like a little piece of the island, making you not only want to be there, but making you feel as if you are there for the moment.”
Local critic Andrew Trimingham once wrote that Kaufmann “seems even to improve on nature. Bermuda’s white light, a light that has the effect of bleaching the intensity of our rather gaudy colours, is the bane of most artists. John Kaufmann understands it perfectly. One can even sense the shimmer of fine salt spray that hangs in the atmosphere over our seashores.”
John Hollis Kaufmann was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1937, the son of the late Canadian surgeon Dr. Mark Kaufmann and his Bermudian wife Jeannette Helena Roberts. He began visiting Bermuda regularly from about 1946 and the family eventually moved to the Island in 1949.
After his schooling in Bermuda, where he attended Whitney Institute and Saltus Grammar School, Kaufmann studied art and design at McGill University in Montreal with John Lyman, a painter with broad international experience, including painting trips to Bermuda. Lyman was a student at the Royal College of Art and the Academie Julian, Paris, where he studied with Matisse. After Montreal, Kaufmann continued his art studies at Bard College, New York. There he studied for about two years with Louis Shanker, who was known not only for abstract paintings, but also for woodcuts. In addition to the impact that teachers may have had on his artistic development, there is also the consideration of influences. Kaufmann mentions such artists as Cezanne, Monet, Kokoschka and especially Tom Thompson and the Canadian Group of Seven. Indeed, Kaufmann was at one time a pupil of Arthur Lismer, one of the Seven. While their influence is seen in Kaufmann’s work, he does not copy them; it is more a recognition of a philosophical and artistic kinship and their examples allow us to have the courage to be ourselves, artistically and otherwise.
John Kaufmann primarily paints in his studios, at his home Tranquillity, in Somerset, Bermuda and Hamelin Farm, Colebrook, New Hampshire. He rarely paints on location and where he once used a sketch book, he will now use as many as 20 photographs of an intended subject and then use the computer program Photoshop to break them down into blocks of colour before starting work on the physical painting itself.
He listens constantly to an eclectic range of music while he paints – Shostakovich, the jazz guitarist Ottmar Liebert, Rachmaninov, Simon and Garfunkel. “I paint quite quickly and I dance while I paint,” he says. “There is a rhythm to the brushstrokes. I went through Shostakovich’s entire Preludes and Fugues while preparing for my Elements show in 2000. They are really quite intense and have an enormous depth.”
Kaufmann’s work is equally deep and intense. He has said: “Most of my paintings have a third dimension, a spirituality which in the scenery or object in the picture makes me feel and I try to pass on to the viewer. I attempt to put across the magnificence of creation, the depth of beauty in the world, the ‘something’ beyond what you are looking at.”
And in the same way a composer develops a theme, there are motifs that are recognizable in Kaufmann’s work, such as moving the horizon line to the top eighth of the canvas to maintain an activity level or change of activity at the top of the canvas. He constantly revisits the reflection of cloud in water yet discovers something new each time.
Aside from his contribution as an artist, John Kaufmann has contributed much to the Bermuda cultural community; as president of the Bermuda Society of Arts, as a founding trustee of the Bermuda National Gallery and as the initial designer of the museum’s physical facility at City Hall. He has also been active in local theatre, designing Bermuda’s Festival Theatre at Prospect for the 1959 production of “This Island’s Mine” and the settings for the Pageant “My Heart Stays Here” at Fort St. Catherine. Since 1968, he has been well known as a painting instructor and numerous local landscape painters owe their start to his tutelage, including, Norma Christensen, Shirley James and the late Susan Curtis. He is also a practicing architect, interior designer and the inventor of the SKB roofing system.
In 1999 he was awarded the Queen’s Certificate and Badge of Honour for “both his innovative architecture and his renowned art greatly enriching Bermuda’s cultural landscape.”
A retrospective, certainly one such as this that covers such a long and illustrious career as John Kaufmann’s, is a suitable time for reflection and the thoughts expressed by the artist at his last one-man exhibition in 2000, seem more poignant now than ever.
“When you are young all things are possible: all vistas new and exciting,” he wrote. “Perhaps now I paint their substance – memories, reflections. The merging of land, sky and water is infinite, timeless – essential elements of our soul.”
From “The Essential Elements of John Kaufmann,” by Charles Zuill
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SENAT, Prosper, L. (1852 – 1925)
Untitled. “Bermuda”.
Signed, “Proser L. Senat”, inscribed, “Bermuda”, and dated 1909 "?"
Oil on canvas.
26.5 x 18.5 in. (67.5 x 47 cm)
Biography
Prosper Louis Senat was a painter, born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 13, 1852, the son of Louis Duval and Cecelia A. Wright Senat of Philadelphia Senat studied in Philadelphia and New York as well as at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris under E. L. Hampton and at the South Kensington School in London under Gerome. On June 22, 1887, he married Clementine Innes Gibbs, and settled in Germantown. He also maintained a studio and house at Cape Arundel, Kennebunkport, Maine. Senat, a watercolor painter who also did etchings, specialized in landscapes and marine subjects. For years he traversed the United States and the coastlines of Cornwall & Brittany as well as Southern Italy, Egypt, Mexico, Jamaica and Bermuda, painting landscapes. Primarily associated with the East Coast, he was also a resident of Pasadena from 1905-1910. He died in Germantown, Pennsylvania, September 12, 1925.
He exhibited both nationally and internationally during his lifetime including at The Brussels Exposition of 1880, The Naples National Exposition of 1889, The Vienna National Exhibition of 1893, The Colombian Exhibition in Chicago 1893 and Atlanta in 1895. At the expositions in Chicago and in Atlanta on both occasions he won medals. Senat had memberships at The Salmagundi Club, The Art Club of Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Society of Artists, and The Artists' Fund Society of New York. Examples of his work can be found at The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Delaware Art Museum and The Joslyn Art Museum. Senat and his wife were frequent visitors to Bermuda in the early 1900s. During their visits to the island they stayed at the Princess Hotel where Senat exhibited his work on numerous occasions.
In a local Bermudian newspaper (Royal Gazette April 7, 1908) the following advertisement appeared:
“Final Exhibition of Mr. Senat’s Bermuda Water Colors:”
Mr. Prosper L. Senat, who is returning, with Mrs, Senat on Saturday next, will make a final exhibition of his winter’s work, at the Hotel Hamilton tomorrow, Wednesday, 8th inst., from 10am until 6:30pm. In addition to the watercolors remaining un-sold there will be shown most of those already disposed of, which it is his custom to take to the States for delivery, together with a large and interesting collection of Black and White compositions which it is Mr. Senat’s custom to make a preliminary to his more important works, and seldom seen out of his studios.
In fact we now know that Senat worked in Bermuda many more times after this supposed "final exhibition". He is known to have executed works up umtil the early 1920s and it is probable that these too were exhibited.
Additionally, according to a catalogue from The Bermuda Society of Arts entitled, "Loan Exhibition from Private Collections, July 27th- August 30th, 1963", Prosper Senat was a "professional painter" and frequent guest at the Princess Hotel, where he often held a Spring Exhibition.
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SALEMME, Antonio. (1892 – 1995).
Bermuda (1959)
Signed lower left, “Antonio Salemme”
Oil on canvas.
22 x 30 in. (55.9 x 76.2 cm.)
For a biography on Antonio Salemme download here Antonio Salemme
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SNOW, William Freeman.
A Bermudian House.
Signed lower left, "W.F. Snow"
Oil on board.
10 x 16 in. ( 25.5 x 16 cm).
Provenance: Bermuda Art Market thence from the Estate of F.G. Gosling, Bermuda.
Special note: Artists "W. Francis Snow" and "Warren F. Snow" have, rather confusingly sometimes, been confused with William Freeman Snow who is well-known to Bermudians.
Biography
According to a catalogue from The Bermuda Society of Arts entitled, “Loan Exhibition from Private Collections, July 27th – August 30th, 1963,” “William Freeman Snow was one of the most popular painters of the Bermuda scene between 1930 and 1950.” His [favourite medium] oils, the catalogue adds were “treasured in many an old home, usually hung in a place of honour. His lacy waves breaking on the beaches, his delicately outlined clouds, his luminous atmosphere shimmering over gleaming houses embedded in cedar groves and encircled by oleanders, give his paintings a distinctive character.”
William Freeman Snow operated a studio at a lane that ran along-side the base of Lighthouse Hill, Southampton, overlooking Waterlot Inn.
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TEICHNER, Joseph.
South Shore, Bermuda.
Exhibition label on verso titles this work "South Shore, Bermuda" and exhibited at The Brooklyn Museum Summer Exhibition 1931.
Oil on canvas.
Unsigned - but see Exhibition Label for verification that it is by this artist.
20 x 14 in. (50.8 cm. x 35.56 cm.)
Teichner was active in and around New York City. He was a student at the prestigious National Academy of Design. His work was in Exhibitions at The Brooklyn Society of Artists, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The Salons of America and The Society of Independent Artists.
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WALLER, Frank (1842-1923).
Bermuda Cliffs (probably at the end of Coral Beach). (1912)
Signed in monogram “FW" lower right.
Oil on canvas board.
12 x 9.5 in. (30.5 x 24.25 cm).
For a biography on Frank Waller download here Frank Waller
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WALLER, Frank (1842-1923).
Sunset Waves at Rocky Coast, Bermuda. (1912)
Unsigned.
Oil on canvas board.
4.75 x 9.75 in. (12 x 24.75 cm).
For a biography on Frank Waller download here Frank Waller
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WALLER, Frank (1842-1923).
Bermuda, Ferry Reach, Whale-bone Bay with Stone Dwelling.
Unsigned.
Oil on board.
13 x 12.5 in. (33 x 31.75 cm).
For a biography on Frank Waller download here Frank Waller
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WALLER, Frank (1842-1923).
Coastal Inlets with Path, Bermuda.
Unsigned.
Oil on board.
9.5 x 12.5 in. (24 x 33.75 cm).
For a biography on Frank Waller download here Frank Waller
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