Fletcher Benton, painter and sculptor, was born in Jackson, Ohio on February 25, 1931. He earned his BFA at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in 1956. He then made his way to California and arrived in San Francisco in the midst of the Beat Generation movement. He taught at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland in 1959, and then toured Scandinavia, Holland, Belgium and France on his motorcycle. He was briefly in New York before returning to San Francisco. In 1966-67, he taught at the San Francisco Art Institute and then joined the faculty of the California State University in San Jose where he taught until 1986.

Benton had worked as a sign painter, which provided him with the typographical reference which arise in his later work. Balance, perception, kinetic energy, and movement inspired Benton and, as his work got larger, he created a series of maquettes to explore the geometry and visual power of steel. His sculpture often defies gravity with welded shapes perched seemingly precariously atop each other. His choice of materials reflects his concern with the unique color, tonality and rich luster inherent in metals.

Benton was given an award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1979 and the President’s Scholar Award, California State University, San Jose the following year. The San Francisco Art Commission honored him in 1982 with their Award of Honor for Outstanding Achievement in Sculpture. Over his career he was given three Honorary Doctorates of Fine Arts. He had solo exhibitions in Belgium, Germany, Venezuela, Argentina and Korea.

Benton has large-scale steel sculptures permanently installed world-wide including at San Francisco’s Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall; the Grounds For Sculpture park in Hamilton, New Jersey; in the cities of Berlin and Cologne, Germany. His works are in the collections of the Denver Art Museum, Colorado; the New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana; the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Oakland Museum of California Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; the de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, California; and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

Fletcher Benton died in San Francisco, California on June 26, 2019.