| Benson Bond Moore | ||
| Birth Date: August 13, 1882 |
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| Death Date: November 1, 1974 Artist Gallery |
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| Benson Bond Moore, landscape and animal-portrait painter, and etcher, was born in Washington DC and lived there for seventy years. Moore was a true native of the Mid-Atlantic region and regarded the surrounding countryside as his neighborhood. He covered many a mile of it, usually on foot, during his painting forays.
In his youth, the D.C. area suburbs were outlying villages, surrounded by largely undeveloped countryside and crisscrossed with streams. Moore did not have to go very far from downtown Washington to find himself amid woods and fields. He was also raised in the art world, learning framing and restoration from his father, who did this type of work for leading political figures in the nation’s capital city.
Benson studied at the Linthicum Institute and at the Corcoran School of Art. In 1902, he began work with the Maurice Joyce Photo-Engraving Company in Washington D.C., and there he worked with Dr. Alexander Graham Bell by making drawings to develop hearing aids for the deaf.
With Charles Seaton, Winfield Clime and Edwin Cassedy, he became a founding member of a group of Washington painters who called themselves "The Ramblers Sketch Club.” They roamed the surrounding countryside, painted and then critiqued each other's work.
Moore worked in restoring paintings, including those by Thomas Moran and paintings in the rotunda of the Capitol. This activity occupied him primarily from the 1940s, and in the early 1950s, after his wife died, he moved to Sarasota, Florida. There his sister-in-law cared for him as his eyesight increasingly failed, but he painted almost to the end of his life, November 1, 1974.
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