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About This Artwork
Frank Weston Benson
American, 1862-1951Rainy Day1906
Oil on canvas
63.5 x 76.2 cm (25 x 30 in.)
Signed lower right: F. W. Benson, 1906
Friends of American Art Collection, 1910.314American Art
Not on DisplayLike many of his American contemporaries, Frank Benson spent time in Paris in his youth, studying at the Académie Julian. However, after returning to his native soil he never again ventured overseas, choosing instead to work and draw his artistic inspiration from his homes and surroundings in Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, and North Haven, Maine. The artist did not call himself an Impressionist but he did concentrate on the effects of light in his works, and his paintings of his children outdoors at his summer home in Maine are full of dappled sunlight. Rainy Day, in contrast, shows an interior scene, a rarity among Benson's pictures. Here, his daughter Elizabeth curls up in a chair with a book but her gaze is directed toward a glowing fire, no doubt providing welcome warmth on a dull, stormy day.
Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories
Exhibition History
Saint Louis Art Museum, 2nd Annual Exhibition of Paintings by American Artists, September 26, 1907, cat.6.
New York, Montross Gallery, 11th Annual Exhibition of Ten American Painters, March 17–April 4, 1908, cat.3.
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Ten American Painters, April 11–May 3, 1908, cat. 5 (ill.).
Cincinnati Art Museum, 15th Annual Exhibition of American Art, May 23–July 20, 1908, cat.239.
New York, Macbeth Gallery, An Exhibition of Paintings by a Group of Boston Artists, April 16–29, 1909, cat.1.
Saint Louis Art Museum, 4th Annual Exhibition of Paintings by American Artists, September 12, 1909, cat.15.
Boston, St. Botolph Club, Paintings by Frank W. Benson, January 10–29, 1910, cat.12.
Cincinnati Art Museum, 17th Annual Exhibition of American Art, May 21–July 20, 1910, cat. 3.
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Fourteenth Annual Exhibition, May 2–June 30, cat. 16.
Art Institute of Chicago, Twenty-third Annual Exhibition of American Art, October 18–November 27, 1910, cat. 19.
Toledo Museum of Art, The Inaugural Exhibition, January 17–February 12, 1912, cat. 7.
Washington D.C. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Paintings, Etchings and Drawings by Frank W. Benson, March 24–April 13, 1921, cat. 26.
University of Chicago, Quadrangle Club, October 20, 1922–April 16, 1923.
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, An Exhibition of Paintings, Etchings and Water Colors by Frank W. Benson, January 4–February 15, 1924, cat. 2.
Milwaukee Art Institute, An Exhibition of Forty Paintings Presented to the Art Institute of Chicago by the Friends of American Art, March 1–29, 1925, cat. 5 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, Loan Exhibition for Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–October 31, 1933.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, Loan Exhibition of Art for 1934, June 1–November 1, 1934.
Chicago, Garfield Park Art Galleries, Exhibition of Greek Sculptures and American Paintings lent by the Art Institute of Chicago, November 5, 1935–March 3, 1936, cat. 5.
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, The Centennial Exposition, Department of Fine Arts, June 6–November 29, 1936, cat. 3.
Appleton, Wisconsin, Lawrence College, Loan Exhibition of Oil Paintings, September 22–October 4, 1937, cat. 16.
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Frank W. Benson, Edmund C. Tarbell: Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Prints, November 16–December 15, 1938, cat. 29.
Art Institute of Chicago, Half a Century of American Art, November 16, 1939–January 7, 1940, cat. 14 (ill.).
New York Graphic Society, January–April 1942.
South Bend Art Association, American Painting in the Manner of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, February 10–March 31, 1948, cat. 4.
Evanston, Northwestern University, April 2–9, 1954.
Madison Art Center, Exhibition of Traditional Paintings from the Art Institute, March 1956.
Katonah Museum of Art, New York, At Home with Art: Paintings in American Interiors, 1780–1920, October 1–December 31, 1995, cat. 26 (ill.).
Salem, Massachusetts, Peabody Essex Museum, The Art of Frank W. Benson: American Impressionist, September 24, 2000–February 25, 2001, cat. 23.
Rockland, Maine, Farnsworth Art Museum, Impressionist Summers: Frank W. Benson's North Haven, June 17-December 2012.Publication History
“The Autumn Exhibition,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, IV, (January 1911) p. 36 (ill. p. 47).
William H. Downes, “The Spontaneous Gaiety of Frank W. Benson’s Work,” Arts and Decoration, 1, (March 1911) p. 197 (ill.).
“Acquisitions,” Friends of American Art Second Year Book, (1911–12) p. 13 (ill. p.16).
“Acquisitions,” Friends of American Art Third Year Book, (1912–13) p. 15 (ill. p. 18).
Art Institute of Chicago General Catalogue, (1913) p. 146.
“Acquisitions,” Friends of American Art Fourth Year Book, (1913–14) p. 17 (ill. p. 20).
Art Institute of Chicago General Catalogue, (1914) p. 152.
“Acquisitions,” Friends of American Art Fifth Year Book, (1914-15) p. 20 (ill. p. 36).
Friends of American Art Announcement, (1919) (1ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago Handbook of Paintings and Drawings, (1920) p. 39.
Francis Hamilton, “Artist’s Homes as They Paint Them,” International Studio, 81, (September 1925) pp. 416–17 (ill. p. 415).
A Guide to Paintings in the Permanent Collection, 365 (1925) p. 126 (ill. p. 105).
Rilla Evelyn Jackman, American Arts, (1928) (ill. pl. 108).
A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection, (1932) p. 142 (ill. p. 125).
Margaret Rape, “College Exhibits 50 Paintings of Art Institute,” The Lawrentian, (September 24, 1937) p. 12.
Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago, (1961) p. 22.
Henry James, Washington Square, (1968) (ill. cover).
Donelson F. Hoopes, The American Impressionists, (1972) p. 100 (ill. p. 101).
Judith A. Barter et al, The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2011), no. 11.
