Frank W. Benson has been called the last great American impressionist, the dean of American etchers and a master of the sporting print.

Defined himself as an artist whose talent was to “simply follow the light where it comes and where it goes.”

A Salem, Massachusetts native, Benson studied in Paris at the Académie Julian. Returning to New England, he established a career as a portrait painter. He married and began raising a family, who were often subjects of his painting.

With his open air paintings (or en Plein air) he inspired what became to be known as the Boston School of Impressionism.

He also became part of a group of New York and Boston artists known as the Ten which included Childe Hassam, John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, Thomas W. Dewing, Joseph De Camp, Frank W. Benson, Willard Leroy Metcalf, Edmund Tarbell, Robert Reid, and E.E. Simmons.