Ben Benson, Artist Known For Small, gemlike Paintings, 74

[DGH]

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Ben Benson, a burly Chicago [Illinois] -area artist who for decades
created delicate geometric abstractions that achieved a sublimity beyond
local taste, died Tuesday, November 5, 2002, of cardiac arrest, having
recently had undergone radiation treatment for cancer, following years
of debilitation from secondary diabetes, at the age of 74.

A Northwestern University journalism graduate in the 1950s, Mr. Benson
turned to visual art as a means of gaining the pleasure he found lacking
in writing. Nevertheless, his first novel, "Cain's Wife," published
under his formal name, O. G. Benson, became a cult favorite and was
declared an "unsuspected classic" before being reprinted in the
mid-1980s.

His small, gemlike paintings -- any work larger than a foot square was
huge for him -- were admired for their purity and grace, despite their
carrying on an early modern tradition that found little favor in
Chicago. Even while exhibiting regularly at the Richard Gray Gallery
since 1972, Mr. Benson found himself passed over by museum exhibitions
purporting to trace the history of contemporary painting in the city.

"He was, I think, a dedicated artist with conviction," said Richard
Gray. "He never wavered from his vision. There was a time when it might
have been easy to look at his work as derivative, but it consistently
showed his own take on things. He had an exquisite sensibility."

He was an avid reader, and anyone engaging him would be hard-pressed to
match his depth of interest not only in literature and the visual arts
but also in Eastern philosophy and cooking.

One of Mr. Benson's two daughters recalled his fondness for playing
Kabuki music in the middle of the night; the other named her daughter
Tashira after one of his favorite characters in an Akira Kurosawa film.

"In close to 50 years of marriage, I never had one minute bored," said
his wife, Betty

Chicago Tribune