Archives of American Art

A Finding Aid to the Fletcher Benton Papers, 1934-2014, in the Archives of American Art

Summary
Collection ID:
AAA.bentflet
Creators:
Benton, Fletcher, 1931-
Dates:
1934-2014
Languages:
English; German; Norwegian; Spanish; Korean; Japanese; Dutch; Portuguese.
Physical Description:
8.7 Linear feet
1.47 Gigabytes
Repository:
The papers of sculptor and painter Fletcher Benton measure 8.2 linear feet and 1.47 GB and date from 1934 to 2014. They document his career as a sculptor with international presence through certificates, personal photographs, legal papers, correspondence, exhibition and commission documentation, clippings, exhibition-related printed materials, broadcast materials, publications about his work, an editioned kinetic Christmas card, and photographs, sound and video recordings, and motion picture film documenting his work and career.
Scope and Contents
Scope and Contents
The papers of sculptor and painter Fletcher Benton measure 8.2 linear feet and 1.47 GB and date from 1934 to 2014. They document his career through personal photographs, legal papers, correspondence, exhibition and commission documentation, clippings, exhibition-related printed materials, broadcast materials, publications about his work, an editioned kinetic Christmas card, photographs, sound and video recordings motion picture film, some of which also appears in digitized form.
Biographical Materials include personal photographs, legal documents related to a court case with book designer Ed Marquand, biographical texts, interview transcripts, and a home video made by the artist. Correspondence is with other artists, friends, galleries, museums and other institutions, including George W. Neubert, André Emmerich Gallery, Pieter Sanders, Pol Bury, George Rickey, Ulfert Wilke, Marlene Louchheim, DeWain Valentine, Lillian E. Jones, and Edward Lucie-Smith. Interviews include sound recordings of interviews with Benton by academics and journalists, including Edward Lucie-Smith, Dan Tooker, and Dan De Wilde.
Exhibition and Commission Files consist of correspondence with galleries, museums and commission patrons; financial records; shipping and subcontracting documentation; motion picture film, video, and sound recordings related to exhibitions and installations; and planning and design materials. Series includes a significant amount of oversized drawings and plans for site-specific work. There is a large volume documentation from the
Folded Circle-Arc
commission by Stanley Consultants, Inc. in Muscatine, Iowa; the California/International Arts Foundation Traveling Sculpture Exhibition;
Double Folded Circle Ring
in Brussels and
Double Circle Folded
by Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Printed Materials include news clippings related to Benton's career, as well as brochures, exhibition catalogs, posters and other printed materials related to exhibitions and commissions. Broadcast materials include television news footage, radio and television interviews, documentaries, and promotional materials made by galleries and other cultural institutions.
Photographic and Moving Image Materials include art-related images showing Benton in his studio and images of exhibitions, installations and inaugurations. Also found are still photographs and motion picture films of artworks, including paintings, sculptures, and kinetic drawings, and a series of photographs of sculptures taken by David Finn.
Artwork consists of an editioned art Christmas card created by Benton for Galeria Bonino in New York from 1969.
An American Artist
Moving Image Materials consist of 13 videocassettes (VHS) which document the production process of the documentary
Fletcher Benton: An American Artist
by Morgan Cavett. There is footage from interviews with Benton and with curator George W. Neubert, footage of San Francisco with comments from Benton about his time there, interviews with the artist's studio assistants, images of his studio in Dore street and a couple of almost finished rough versions of the documentary.
Arrangement
Arrangement
This collection is arranged as nine series.
    Missing Title
  • Series 1: Biographical Material (0.3 linear feet; boxes 1, 9)
  • Series 2: Correspondence (1 linear foot; boxes 1, 2, OV 10)
  • Series 3: Interviews (0.3 linear feet; box 2)
  • Series 4: Exhibition and Commission Files (2 linear feet, 0.50 GB; boxes 2-4, OV 11-13, RD 14, FC 15, ER01)
  • Series 5: Printed Materials (2.3 linear feet; boxes 4-6, OV 10)
  • Series 6: Broadcast Materials (1.1 linear foot; boxes 6-7)
  • Series 7: Photographic and Moving Image Materials (0.5 linear feet, 0.97 GB; boxes 7, 9, FC 16-17, ER02)
  • Series 8: Artwork (1 item; box 7)
  • Series 9:
    An American Artist
    Video Recordings (0.6 linear feet; boxes 7-8)
Biographical / Historical
Biographical / Historical
Fletcher Benton was born in Jackson, Ohio in 1931 to Fletcher and Nell Cavett Benton and was the oldest of three children. Benton graduated from Jackson High School in 1949. After serving in the Navy he graduated from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) in 1956 and moved to San Francisco, where he started working as an instructor at the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1959. He was in San Francisco during the flourishing of the Beat generation, where he had a studio in the North beach area and exhibited at coffee house galleries.
After travelling around Europe in 1960, Benton moved to New York City where he tried to make his living through painting and teaching privately. During those years he was supported by Jackson's local arts patron and family friend, Lillian E. Jones. In 1960 he had his first solo exhibition at Gump's gallery in San Francisco, but his work was taken down after one day because it was considered obscene for including female nudes. He returned to San Francisco in late 1961.
In 1966 Fletcher started teaching at the San Francisco Art Institute and established himself as a primary figure of American kinetic art. In 1966, Peter Selz included his work in the exhibition
Directions in Kinetic Sculpture
at the University Art Gallery in Berkeley, CA. During the exhibition Benton met the artists Pol Bury and George Rickey with whom he became friends. The exhibition, along with an article "The Movement Movement" that appeared in Time magazine the same year, established Benton's reputation as a significant American Kinetic artist. He also started teaching at the California State University in San José in 1967 where he continued working until 1986.
By 1974 Benton abandoned kinetic art to continue exploring sculpture in three dimensions in a style that became known as "new constructivism." The artworks were conceived in the series
Folded Circles
and
Folded Square Alphabets
and were produced in bronze, aluminum and steel. It was also during the 1970s that he started doing large-scale commissions such as the 1977 IBM commission.
Between 1981 and 1984 Benton constructed his studio in Dore Street in the Market district of San Francisco where he continues to work today. During the 1980s Benton started his
Balanced/Unbalanced
series, which introduced the idea of gravity using geometric forms in different formats and sizes.
From 1984 he began to show more work in Europe, especially in Germany, where in 1993 he got a major commission to create a colossal public sculpture in Cologne entitled
Steel Watercolor Triangle Ring
. It was also in Germany where Benton encountered the work of Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich, and he began work on his
Construct Relief
series in reponse, which he dedicated to Kandinsky. These geometric constructions are flat, canvas-like steel structures that combine features of painting and sculpture. As the series evolved, the work became more like painting, constructed to hang on the wall without a back piece, so they seem to be floating in the space.
Benton continues to live and work in San Francisco and is represented by multiple galleries in the United States and Germany.
Administration
Author
Almudena Escobar Lopez
Sponsor
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered through the Council on Library and Information Resources' Hidden Collections grant program.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated 2005-2006 and 2014 by Fletcher Benton. Benton's wife, Bobbie Benton, organized the material by subject matter and date.
Processing Information
This collection was fully processed and a finding aid prepared by Almudena Escobar Lopez in 2014 with funding provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources' "Hidden Collections" grant program. Motion picture film reels were inspected and re-housed in 2016 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund. Born-digital materials were processed by Kirsi Ritosalmi-Kisner in 2019 with funding provided by Smithsonian Collection Care and Preservation Fund.
Using the Collection
Preferred Citation
Fletcher Benton papers, 1934-2014. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Terms of Use
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Conditions Governing Access
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of audiovisual material without a duplicate copy requires advanced notice.
Related Materials
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Fletcher Benton conducted by Paul J. Karlstrom, 1989 May 2-4 is available on the Archives of American Art website.
Keywords
Keywords table of terms and types.
Keyword Terms Keyword Types
Interviews Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Motion pictures (visual works) Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Drawings Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Video recordings Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Transcripts Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Sound recordings Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Artists' studios -- Photographs Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Occupation Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Photographs Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Sculptors -- California -- San Francisco Occupation Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Christmas cards Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Galerie Denino Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Louchheim, Marlene Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Lucie-Smith, Edward Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Finn, David Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Jones, Lillian E. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Bury, Pol, 1922-2005 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
De Wilde, Dan Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
André Emmerich Gallery Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Wilke, Ulfert, 1907-1987 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Valentine, De Wain, 1936-2022 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Tooker, Dan Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Sanders, Pieter Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Rickey, George Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Neubert, George W. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Marquand, Ed Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Repository Contact
Archives of American Art
750 9th Street, NW
Victor Building, Suite 2200
Washington, D.C. 20001
https://www.aaa.si.edu/services/questions