Image assets for this folder have not been fully processed.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
Karl Benjamin (1925- 2012) was a painter and educator in Claremont, California, known for his Hard Edge geometric and vibrantly colored abstract paintings.
After serving in the United States Navy in World War II, Benjamin graduated from Southern California's University of Redlands in 1949 with a BA degree in English literature, history and philosophy. He relocated to Claremont, where he taught in public schools and subsequently at Pomona College, and began painting and exhibiting his work. Following the 1959 exhibition Four Abstract Classicists: Karl Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley and John McLaughlin at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Benjamin became known as one of the region's leading Hard Edge painters.
Benjamin received the National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Visual Arts in 1983 and 1989. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and can be found in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museum of Modern Art, Israel, Oakland Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Seattle Art Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.
