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Provenance: The artist.
Guild of Boston Artists, Boston, Massachusetts, 1929.
Collection of Merrill Griswold, 1929.
By descent until 2004.
Vose Galleries, Boston, Massachusetts.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 2005.

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Notes: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

In 1895 Frank W. Benson wrote to a friend, "Salmon fishing seems to me the finest sport in the world." (F.A. Bedford, Frank W. Benson: American Impressionist, New York, 1994, p. 208) In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Benson expanded on this lifelong sporting enthusiasm with a group of extraordinary oil paintings and watercolors that depict the sport of salmon fishing. In these works the artist combined his brilliant Impressionistic technique with subjects similar to the great Adirondack watercolors of Winslow Homer, which portrayed, "the ordinary man engaged in hunting or fishing for food or sport in a truly American setting and manner." (Frank W. Benson: American Impressionist, p. 200) Painted in 1928, Restigouche at Sunset, captures the essence of these two qualities--the painting is infused with careful observation of light, color and atmosphere and it speaks to the artist's understanding of the peacefulness and tranquility found in the North American wilderness.

An avid outdoorsman and sportsman, Benson was attracted throughout his life to fishing and hunting as a subject matter. Born in Salem, Massachusetts to a maritime family, Benson spent much of his youth on the water, receiving his first sailboat by the age of 12. By 17 he had a passion for sports including tennis, boxing and "hunting and fishing; his diaries reveal that he found time almost every weekend from spring through fall to take to the fields and streams of Essex County...His father gave him his first shotgun and taught him how to hunt the wildfowl and shorebirds of the North Shore." (Frank W. Benson: American Impressionist, p. 17) One of his first oil paintings as a child was of two birds shot on a hunt and throughout his life, Benson's frequent fishing and hunting trips were often the source for his paintings.

In Restigouche at Sunset, Benson has retained the Impressionistic style that received wide acclaim earlier in his career. He applies this technique to reverently capture a peaceful moment of commune between man and nature. In the present work the man is subsumed by the expansive, atmospheric landscape. "Some of Benson's paintings of this period, especially his large oils, were often more landscape than figure study, more about nature than the people who inhabit it...The tiny man silhouetted against a small patch of silver water is insignificant. His being is subordinated to the majesty of the looming mountains and the power of the swift stream." (Frank W. Benson: American Impressionist, p. 200)

Faith Andrews Bedford writes that "Benson was never happier than when he was outdoors. He worked hard and long to support organizations that fostered stewardship of the land and conservation of its resources." (Frank W. Benson: American Impressionist, p. 200) Benson's passion and veneration for nature is nowhere more evident than in his large, contemplative oils of a solitary figure within an expanse of wilderness. With its refined subject matter and masterful execution, Restigouche at Sunset is exemplary of Benson's ability to combine highly personal imagery with a sophisticated Impressionist technique.