Steven Alan Bennett

Last updated

Steven Alan Bennett
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater University of Notre Dame
University of Kansas School of Law
OccupationAttorney
Known forArt collector

Steven Alan Bennett is an American attorney, art collector, and philanthropist.

Contents

Career

After stints at several Fortune 100 companies, Bennett retired in September 2015 as executive vice president, chief legal officer and corporate secretary of USAA. [1] In 1996, President Bill Clinton appointed Bennett as a member and, later, as Vice Chairman of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars within the Smithsonian Institution. [2]

Art collecting

Bennett works on collecting art, writing an art blog, producing a podcast, and participating in various philanthropic projects.[ citation needed ] He is married to Elaine Melotti Schmidt and they have an extensive art collection of works by women figurative realist painters. [3] To further support the type of work they collect, [4] they established The Bennett Prize for Women Figurative Realists ("The Bennett Prize"), in 2016. [5] The contest awards $50,000 biennially to a woman figurative realist painter following a juried competition, followed by a traveling exhibition of the works of the ten finalists. [6] [7] The Bennett Prize has been awarded three times since inception and has recognized 30 women painters as finalists. [8] [9]

In 2022, Bennett and Schmidt made a $12 Million gift to the Muskegon Museum of Art, [10] the host museum for the Bennett Prize competition, which included a monetary donation along with art from their collection. [11]

The Bennetts’ personal collection has been compiled over many years. The Bennett Collection is composed of historic works including pieces by Mary Cassatt, Artemisia Gentileschi, [12] Elaine de Kooning, Sarah Miriam Peale, Agnes Martin, and Suzanne Valadon. Among the living artists represented in the collection are major works by Julie Bell, Margaret Bowland, Zoey Frank, Xenia Hausner, Andrea Kowch, Katie O’Hagan, Harmonia Rosales, Alyssa Monks, SuSu, and Kathrin Longhurst, [13] among others. [14]

Philanthropy

Bennett and his wife are supporters of the charity Friends of Kenyan Orphans, which provides food and shelter along with K-12 education. [15] He is also a founding trustee of the Center for Thomas More Studies at the University of Dallas.[ citation needed ] Bennett serves as a director on the board of a realist art school in Philadelphia, Studio Incamminati, where the couple sponsors The Bennett-Schmidt Lectures on the Higher Aim of Art. [16]

Background

Bennett is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a degree in art history. He also holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Kansas School of Law.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modern art</span> Artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s

Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic for the traditional arts, toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More recent artistic production is often called contemporary art or postmodern art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elaine de Kooning</span> American expressionist painter (1918–1988)

Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an editorial associate for Art News magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antonio López García</span> Spanish painter and sculptor (born 1936)

Antonio López García is a Spanish painter and sculptor, known for his realistic style. He is criticized by some modern artists for what they consider neo-academism, but has been praised by leading art critics, such as Robert Hughes, who considered him "the greatest realist artist alive" in 1986. His style sometimes is deemed hyperrealistic. His painting was the subject of the film El Sol del Membrillo, by Victor Erice, in 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mel Ramos</span> American painter

Melvin John Ramos was an American figurative painter, specializing most often in paintings of female nudes, whose work incorporates elements of realist and abstract art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wojciech Fangor</span> Polish modern painter

WojciechBonawentura Fangor, also known as Voy Fangor, was a Polish painter, graphic artist, sculptor. Described as "one of the most distinctive painters to emerge from postwar Poland," Fangor has been associated with Op art and Color field movements and recognized as a key figure in the history of Polish abstract art. As a graphic artist, Fangor is known as a co-creator of the influential Polish School of Posters. Between 1953 and 1961, he designed over one hundred posters working alongside Henryk Tomaszewski, Jan Lenica and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brauer Museum of Art</span> Art museum in Indiana, United States

The Brauer Museum of Art is home to a collection of 19th- and 20th-century American art, world religious art, and Midwestern regional art. It is located in the Valparaiso University Center for the Arts (VUCA) on the campus of Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, US. Prior to the museum's opening, the university's collection was housed and displayed within several buildings across campus. It was named the Brauer Museum of Art in 1996 to honor the collection's long-time director and curator, Richard H. W. Brauer.

The Bay Area Figurative Movement was a mid-20th Century art movement made up of a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area who abandoned working in the prevailing style of Abstract Expressionism in favor of a return to figuration in painting during the 1950s and onward into the 1960s. Spanning two decades, this art movement is often broken down into three groups, or generations: the First Generation, the Bridge Generation, and the Second Generation.

Harvey Dinnerstein was an American figurative artist and educator. A draftsman and painter in the realistic tradition, his work included genre paintings, contemporary narratives, complex figurative compositions, portraits, and intimate images of his family and friends.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregory Gillespie</span> American painter

Gregory Joseph Gillespie was an American magic realist painter.

Paul John Wonner was an American artist best known for his still-life paintings done in an abstract expressionist style. Born in Tucson, Arizona, he received a B.A. in 1952, an M.A. in 1953, and an M.L.S. in 1955―all from the University of California, Berkeley. He rose to prominence in the 1950s as an abstract expressionist associated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement, along with his partner, Theophilus Brown, whom he met in 1952 while attending graduate school. In 1956, Wonner started painting a series of dreamlike male bathers and boys with bouquets. In 1962, he began teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles. By the end of the 1960s, he had abandoned his loose figurative style and focused exclusively on still lifes in a hyperrealist style. Wonner died April 23, 2008, in San Francisco, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pacita Abad</span> Ivatan and Philippine-American painter

Pacita Abad was born in Basco, Batanes, a small island in the northernmost part of the Philippines, between Luzon and Taiwan. Her more than 30-year painting career began when she traveled to the United States to undertake graduate studies in Spain. She exhibited her work in over 200 museums, galleries and other venues, including 75 solo shows, around the world. Abad's work is now in public, corporate and private art collections in over 70 countries.

The contemporary realism movement is a worldwide style of painting which came into existence c. 1960s and early 1970s. Featuring a straightforward approach to representation practiced by artists such as Philip Pearlstein, Alex Katz, Jack Beal and Neil Welliver. The movement refers to figurative art works created in a natural yet highly objective style. Today the term Contemporary Realism encompasses all post-1970 sculptors and painters whose discipline is representational art, where the object is to portray the "real" and not the "ideal".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nelson Shanks</span> American painter

John Nelson Shanks was an American artist and painter. His best known works include his portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales, first shown at Hirschl & Adler Gallery in New York City, April 24 to June 28, 1996 and the portrait of president Bill Clinton for the National Portrait Gallery.

Peter Seitz Adams is an American artist. His body of work focuses on landscapes and seascapes created en plein air in oil or pastel as well as enigmatic figure and still-life paintings. He is noted for his colorful, high-key palette and broad brushwork. Adams has held numerous solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums, including throughout California, the Western United States, and on the East Coast in Philadelphia, Vermont, and New York. Adams is the longest serving President of the California Art Club and has served on its board of directors in Pasadena, California from 1993 to 2018. He is also a writer on subjects relating to historic artists for the California Art Club Newsletter, as well as for a number of the organization's exhibition catalogs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grace Hartigan</span> American painter

Grace Hartigan was an American Abstract Expressionist painter and a significant member of the vibrant New York School of the 1950s and 1960s. Her circle of friends, who frequently inspired one another in their artistic endeavors, included Jackson Pollock, Larry Rivers, Helen Frankenthaler, Willem and Elaine de Kooning and Frank O'Hara. Her paintings are held by numerous major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. As director of the Maryland Institute College of Art's Hoffberger School of Painting, she influenced numerous young artists.

Walter Henry "Jack" Beal Jr. was an American realist painter.

The Bennett Prize for Women Figurative Realists is a $50,000 biennial art prize established in 2016 by American art collectors Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt.

Dorielle Caimi is an American artist living and working in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She uses oil painting to depict figuration, vivid colors, and symbolism as reclamation and recompilation of societal ideas regarding women. Her work prioritizes the female gaze and personal experience.

The Bennett Collection is an art collection established and maintained by art collectors and philanthropists, Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt of San Antonio, Texas. They are also the founders of the Bennett Prize for Women Figurative Realists, which awards $50,000 biennially to a woman figurative realist painter following a juried competition followed by a traveling exhibition of the works of the 10 finalists for the Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian O'Connor (artist)</span> American visual artist (1958–2022)

Brian O'Connor was an American visual artist who worked in a surrealistic style. He lived and collaborated with his wife, Iva, in the small town of Veguita, New Mexico. The documentary film, Painting Grey, was made about his work and life.

References

  1. ↑ "San Antonio couple endows $50,000 award for female painters" San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved May 15, 2023.
  2. ↑ "President Clinton Names Steven Alan Bannett to the Board of Trustees of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars" White House Office of the Press Secretary. Retrieved May 15, 2023.
  3. ↑ "Supporter Spotlight: Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt" Frye Museum Blog. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  4. ↑ Gotthardt, Alexxa (April 11, 2018). "This New $50k Prize Is Just for Emerging Female Figurative Painters". Artsy. Retrieved March 8, 2019.
  5. ↑ "Groundbreaking Event Planned for Muskegon Museum Expansion" US News & World Report. Retrieved October 14, 2022.
  6. ↑ "A $50,000 Biennial Prize Recognizing Women Figurative Realist Painters" Fine Art Connoisseur. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
  7. ↑ "First-of-its-kind prize aims to propel careers of women artists" Pittsburgh Foundation. Retrieved June 7, 2022.
  8. ↑ "First-of-its-kind prize aims to propel careers of women artists" Black Tie Magazine. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  9. ↑ "The $50,000 Bennett Prize is Back for Its Third Edition" ARTnews. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  10. ↑ "Muskegon Museum of Art to break ground on $11.2M expansion with spotlight on art by women" MiBiz. Retrieved October 14, 2022.
  11. ↑ "Muskegon Museum of Art breaks ground on new expansion, celebrates $12 Million donation" WZZM. Retrieved September 15, 2022.
  12. ↑ "Art Herstory Adds Five New Note Card Designs for Spring 2021" Art Herstory. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  13. ↑ "Major new work by Kathrin Longhurst purchased by The Bennett Art Collection" NandaHobbs.com. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  14. ↑ "The Collection" The Bennett Collection. Retrieved September 7, 2022.
  15. ↑ "San Antonio collectors champion women artists with Bennett Prize, Muskegon Museum gift" San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved May 15, 2023.
  16. ↑ "The Bennett- Schmidt Lecture Series on the Aim of Art" Studio Incamminati. Retrieved May 15, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.