41. Frank Weston Benson
(1862-1951)
Yellowlegs at Dusk

(click on image to print)
Benson, Yellowlegs at Dusk

Yellowlegs at Dusk

Etching, 1928, 199 x 299 mm. Paff 279 ii/ii. Fine impression, with plate tone, on laid paper with good margins, signed in pencil from the edition of 150; the margins slightly discolored. In his long and productive career, Benson played several roles: academic painter of landscapes and portraits, muralist, impressionist painter, teacher, designer of stamps and etcher. He did not seriously take up etching until his fiftieth year, but from then on produced a staggering amount of work, most of it devoted to hunting, fishing, wildlife and the great outdoors. In this, he had almost no predecessors, though many followers. His work is distinguished from that of most of his followers by two things: superb composition and the ability to endow his varied creatures with life and movement. His birds are convincingly in flight, as opposed to so many others merely dead on the page. And his birds take off, fly and alight in superbly artistic patterns, in contrast to the randomness of many others. This is not easy to do, and Benson is the first artist in the Etching Revival to try it and the first to succeed.