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signed F.W. Benson and dated '26, l.l.

oil on canvas

The present work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work being compiled by Vose Galleries of Boston.

This painting retains its original Wilfred-Thulin frame inscribed W.T. and dated 1927.

PROVENANCE

Macbeth Galleries, New York
Thomas Cochran, New York
Louise Savage (his sister), Saint Paul, Minnesota
By descent to the present owner (her grandson), 1968
CATALOGUE NOTE

Frank W. Benson achieved great recognition as a painter of plein air Impressionist portraits, but late in his life, the artist became well known for his sporting subjects, executed during his annual fishing and shooting trips to Nova Scotia, Canada. A native of Essex, Massachusetts, Benson grew up spending his days hunting and fishing in the marshes surrounding his home and like all the Benson children, he was given a boat at the age of 12 to further explore the local landscape. In addition, Benson was fascinated by ornithology. He was a great admirer of John James Audubon and often spent hours visiting the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. Benson remained an avid outdoorsman throughout his life and as Faith Andrews Bedford writes, "Benson was never happier than when he was outdoors. He worked long and hard to support organizations that fostered stewardship of the land and conservation of its resources...Benson's paintings of this period, especially his large oils, were often more landscape than figure study, more about nature than the people who inhabited it" (Frank W. Benson: American Impressionist, New York, 1994, p. 200).

Always a very private man, Benson's increasing deafness as he grew older caused him to lose interest in Boston's social whirl, preferring instead the company of family and close friends at the Benson's summer home in Maine, and the solitude of the Nova Scotian wilderness. It was this combination of an early love of the wild and a preference for a quieter life that informed Benson's shift in concentration in his later years. Reminiscent of Homer's Adirondack subjects, Benson's sporting paintings often depict individual fishermen or hunters, sometimes in the company of a guide or dog, completely absorbed in the activity at hand?whether fly fishing or punting a boat down the river?and utterly at ease in their natural surroundings. The First Shot, painted in 1926, depicts a lone figure set against a dramatic twilight sky, symbolizing Benson's deference to and awe of nature.