Frank Moss Bennett
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British Artist (1874 - 1952)
Frank Moss Bennett was born in Liverpool, England on
15 November 1874 to Henry Mellor Bennett and Kate née Stuart. He was
the second of four sons and his father, an Iron Founder and later
the Mayor of Liverpool, was a philanthropist. Not much is known
about Bennett’s early education except that he was probably taught
at home with his brothers, and that he showed a talent for painting
at an early age. As noted by Maureen Elizabeth Son in her book Frank
Moss Bennett, 1874-1952 (The Forgotten Artist), Bennett’s earliest
known artwork was a Christmas card that he painted for his
grandfather when he was five years old.
Bennett enrolled at Browns House, Clifton College in Bristol where
he studied until 1892. He then decided that he wanted to become an
artist and enrolled that year, in the Slade School of Art in London,
where he met Eddie Wells who would become a close friend and later
his brother-in-law. Together they studied under some well-known
artists such as Henry Tonks, Philip Wilson Steer, and John Singer
Sargent. In 1894, Bennett went to St. Johns Wood School of Art where
he spent a few months, before joining the Royal Academy School of
Art in 1986. While studying at the Academy, he won a gold medal and
a travel scholarship in 1899 for his lithograph entitled ‘Ladas the
Greek runner falling dead as he goes to receive his crown of wild
olives at Olympia’.
While Bennett established his reputation in portraiture, it was in
the realm of genre paintings that he truly became popular. Like some
other artists working during the late nineteenth century, he
favoured the historic genre, which continued to appeal to art
patrons. He was particularly influenced by the French artist
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, who was famous for the meticulous and
accurate historical rendition of his subjects, and his eighteenth
century scenes of readers, philosophers, and card players. Bennett
aspired to achieve historical accuracy in his paintings. He would
use the furniture that he himself had designed, restored and made in
his pictures, and would dress his models in historical costumes, of
which he had a very large collection.
Bennett enjoyed public success during his lifetime. He exhibited his
works in London at the Royal Academy from 1898 until 1928, Liverpool
Art Gallery from 1899 until 1832; the Royal Institute of Watercolor
Painters; Royal Institute of Oil Painters; Rembrandt Gallery, and at
the Paris Salon in France. Furthermore, Bennett sold many of his
works through a number of art dealers mostly in London
