A lifelong painter, Christopher W. Benson (b. 1960) has built an impressive career for over two decades. Hailing from a family of noted American artists and art educators, Benson first picked up a brush at ten years old. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and two-time winner of the Pollock Krasner Painting Fellowship, he has lived, worked and exhibited for extended periods in New England, New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area and New Mexico.
Although Benson is often known for his representation works – depicting a wide variety of everyday life from cityscapes to portraits to landscapes – he has skillfully danced with expressionism and abstraction. His works are widely recognized for taking inspiration from east coast painters, such as Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer, and adding the lively spark of Bay Area Figuration. Benson’s work resides in private and museum collections throughout the US and abroad. He currently lives with his wife and their sons in Santa Fe, NM.
As the owner and director of The Fisher Press in Santa Fe, Benson is also a critical and art historical essayist and the designer and publisher of numerous books on art. The Fisher Press limited editions reside in many top American special collections libraries, including at Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth and Stanford Universities, at the Rhode Island School of Design and in the Harrison Collection at the San Francisco Public Library.
