Figural
FRANK WESTON BENSON (1862–1951)
Twilight, 1891
Oil on canvas, 39 1/2 x 49 1/2 in.
Signed and dated (at lower left): Frank W. Benson. 91
RECORDED: “Some Remarkable Pictures; Messrs. Tarbell and Benson’s Work,” Boston Post, March 9, 1891, p. 4 // “Art and Artists,” The Brooklyn Times, April 11, 1891, p. 7 // C.M.S., “Gallery and Studio: Some of the Pictures in the Academy Exhibition,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 12, 1891, p. 17 // William M. Coffin, “The Academy Exhibition,” Harper’s Weekly 35 (April 18, 1891), p. 288 // “The Quintet Club; A Visit to the New York Exhibitions and Some Comparisons Made,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 20, 1891, p. 4 // “The Fine Arts: Prizes at the Academy Exhibition,” The Critic (April 25, 1891), p. 228 // “The Academy,” Art Amateur 24 (May 1891): 145 // “Notable in Many Ways: The Coming Art Institute Exhibitions of Paintings,” Chicago Tribune, October 24, 1891, p. 3, illus. by a drawing // Chicago Morning News, October 27, 1891 // “Frank Benson’s Work Gets the Prize: The Artist’s ‘Twilight’ Honored by the Jury,” Chicago Tribune, November 4, 1891, p. 9 // “Prizes Awarded in Chicago,” The American Architect and Building News 34 (November 14, 1891), p. 107 // The Collector 3 (November 15, 1891), p. 26 // “Fine Arts in 1891: Chicago,” Appleton’s Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1891, vol. 16 (New York: 1892), p. 300 // The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography 13 (1906), p. 413 // Faith Andrews Bedford, Frank W. Benson: American Impressionist (New York: Rizzoli, 1994), pp. 51, 57, 77, 148, 229 n. 17, plate 27 illus. in color // Peabody Essex Museum Collections, vols. 135–36 (Salem, Massachusetts: 1999), p. 83 fig. 52 illus. // Faith Andrews Bedford, The Sporting Art of Frank W. Benson (Boston: David R. Godine, 2000), p. 268 // Kirstin Ringelberg, Redefining Gender in American Impressionist Studio Paintings: Work Place / Domestic Space (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2010), p. 64
EXHIBITED: Chase Gallery, Boston, March 1891 // National Academy of Design, New York, April 6–May 16, 1891, Sixty-sixth Annual Exhibition, no. 223, awarded the Thomas B. Clarke Prize // Art Institute of Chicago, October 16–November 29, 1891, Fourth Annual Exhibition, no. 207, awarded the James W. Ellsworth Prize // Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, January 21–March 5, 1892, Sixty-second Annual Exhibition, no. 10 // University Art Galleries, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, March 12–April 26, 1979, Two American Impressionists: Frank A. Benson and Edmund C. Tarbell, p. 14 // Spanierman Gallery, New York, May 11–June 11, 1988, Frank W. Benson: The Impressionist Years, pp. 35–37, 40, fig. 5 illus. // Berry-Hill Galleries, New York, May 17–June 24, 1989, Frank W. Benson: A Retrospective, pp. 35, 37–38, 40, 140, 147, 151, 190, no. 6 illus. // Spanierman Gallery, New York, May 8–June 9, 1990, Ten American Painters, pp. 15–16, fig. 10 illus. // Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, 2000, The Art of Frank W. Benson: American Impressionist, pp. 82–84, fig. 52 illus.
EX COLL.: E. B. Butler (probably Edward Burgess Butler [1853–1928]), Chicago, by 1892; Walker Collection, Chicago, Illinois; [Allan Stone Gallery, New York]; Donald Jonas (1929–2022), New York; to his estate, 2022 until the present
Throughout the late 1880s and early 1890s, Benson painted intimate depictions of genteel young women in well-appointed interiors illuminated by artificial light, as in works such as By Firelight (1889; private collection). The same holds true for Twilight, a stunning lamplight picture featuring two women seated on a sofa, the demure figure on the right, shown in profile, wearing a white dress while her companion appears in an equally stylish gown in black. The surrounding décor includes a bouquet of white chrysanthemums, a fan-back Windsor chair, and a music stand, their delicately rendered forms silhouetted against a plain backdrop of warm orange and tan hues. In keeping with his work from this period, Benson envelopes these elegant figures in a softly glowing luminosity that, along with his carefully balanced palette, imbues the image with that contemplative mood that collectors of the day found so appealing.
After making its debut at the Chase Gallery in Boston in March 1891, Twilight was exhibited at the major art annuals in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, where it won numerous awards and prizes and broad praise from critics.
Benson’s engagement with serene images of women at leisure in parlors and drawing rooms brought him his earliest critical acclaim and marked the beginning of a remarkable career in which he changed aesthetic directions in accordance with his artistic evolution. Indeed, as Benson became increasingly interested in the effects of outdoor luminosity, he ultimately changed course, and after 1898 turned his attention to dazzling, impressionist-inspired images of family members (most notably his wife, son, and three daughters) relaxing in idyllic sun-dappled settings, as in The Sisters (1899; Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection).
