Frank W. Benson (1862-1951). Man with a Gaff, 1925. Drypoint etching on Whatman paper. Sheet Size: 14 7/8 x 13″. Image size: 11 1/4 x 9 3/4″. From an edition of 150. Signed by the Artist l.l. Archivally framed: 21 x 18 1/2². Excellent condition.
$4,000.00
In Man with A Gaff, Frank Benson illustrates a fishing guide sitting alone on a log in an idyllic scene waiting to assist his client as salmon approach. Using the etching technique of drypoint, Benson expressively captures this moment of solitude, emphasizing the guides connection with nature. His iconic pose is referenced from an earlier watercolor painting, Boiling the Kettle 1923, along with an additional reference to an earlier print, The Guide 1920.
Frank Benson was a member of The Ten American Painters, a group of important artists who were inspired by the works of the French impressionists. Benson’s portraits and paintings of leisure activities at the turn of the twentieth century remain extremely popular images of a bygone era. In his later paintings and prints of wildlife, however, Benson expressed his profound relationship with nature. As the founder and continued leader of the American school of the “sporting print,” the origins of Benson’s art form are to be found in his early life in Massachusetts where he grew up hunting and fishing. Indeed, many of Benson’s prints show the hunt, while others display the pure vitality of his animal subjects. It is this concentration on vitality that distinguishes his wildlife prints from ornithological studies.
Refs.: Faith Andrews Bedford, The Sporting Art of Frank W. Benson; John T. Ordeman, Frank W. Benson’s Etchings, Drypoints and Lithographs, pg. 277.; Paff, no. 225.
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