Elizabeth P. Benson (May 13, 1924 – March 19, 2018) was an American art historian, curator and scholar, known for her extensive contributions over a long career to the study of

pre-Columbian art Pre-Columbian art refers to the visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas from at least 13,000 BCE to the European conquests starting in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era c ...

, in particular that of

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

and the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

. A former "Andrew S. Keck Distinguished Visiting Professor of Art History" at the

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, Benson had also a long association with the

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection Dumbarton Oaks, formally the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, is a historic estate in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was the residence and garden of wealthy U.S. diplomat Robert Woods Bliss and his wife, Mi ...

, where she served both as director of

Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

studies and as curator of the institution's collection of Pre-Columbian artworks. Benson was born in May 1924 and died in Washington D.C. in March 2018 at the age of 93.

Early life and education

Elizabeth Polk Benson, known as Betty, spent her childhood in

Chevy Chase, Maryland Chevy Chase () is the name of both a town and an unincorporated census-designated place (Chevy Chase (CDP), Maryland) that straddle the northwest border of Washington, D.C. and Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Several settlements in th ...

, the daughter of Rebecca Dean Albin and Theodore B. Benson. She attended the

National Cathedral School National Cathedral School (NCS) is an independent Episcopal private day school for girls in grades 4–12 located on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by philanthropist and suffragist Phoe ...

in Washington, D.C., where she was editor of the school literary magazine.National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Gallery Archives. RG32A, National Gallery of Art Oral History Transcripts
Interview with Elizabeth Benson conducted by Anne G. Ritchie on February 19, 1991.
/ref> Benson majored in English at

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

, where she also studied Russian under

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...

. She completed an M.A. in art history and anthropology at the

Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Roman Catholic research university in Washington, D.C. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by U.S. ...

, writing her master's thesis on the 16th century Italian painter

Tintoretto Tintoretto ( , , ; born Jacopo Robusti; late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594) was an Italian painter identified with the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized the speed with ...

Career

After completing her undergraduate studies at Wellesley, Benson returned to Washington D.C. She was a painter as well as a writer, publishing works of poetry and detective fiction and exhibiting her paintings in local galleries. As a painter she specialized in landscapes though she also made abstract paintings and studied for one summer under the abstract painter

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

. Her interest in art led her to a series of jobs at the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, eventually landing in the position of Assistant Registrar in 1954. While at the National Gallery she became familiar with the Pre-Columbian art collection of

Robert Woods Bliss Robert Woods Bliss (August 5, 1875 – April 19, 1962) was an American diplomat, art collector, philanthropist, and one of the co-founders of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C. Early life Bliss was born in S ...

, one of the founders of Dumbarton Oaks. Prior to the construction of the Pre-Columbian Pavilion at Dumbarton Oaks, Mr. Bliss loaned his collection for display at the Gallery and developed a personal working relationship with Benson when he would stop by to bring new objects to be shown. Benson recalled his visits in her oral history with Dumbarton Oaks, remarking that he would come to the Gallery "sometimes with a little object in his pocket, a piece of jade or something, and he would say, 'I want you to see my latest temptation,' or something like that." After working at the National Gallery she moved briefly to New York to once again focus on her career as a creative writer and painter. During this time, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Bliss were planning additions to Dumbarton Oaks which would include a new gallery space, designed by

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the pos ...

, to house Mr. Bliss' collection of Pre-Columbian art. When the building was near completion, Mr. Bliss personally endorsed Benson to be the caretaker of the collection and to oversee the installation of the new gallery, noting in a letter to archaeologist Samuel Lothrop that Benson knew the collection "almost as well as I do!" Benson accepted the offer which began a career spanning two decades at Dumbarton Oaks, starting as Assistant Curator for the Pre-Columbian Collection in 1962 and moving to Curator in 1965, a position she held until 1980. From 1972 to 1978 she had a dual role as the institutions' first Director of Pre-Columbian Studies.

Work at Dumbarton Oaks

Benson began the transition of the Bliss collection of Pre-Columbian objects by cataloging the items which were still housed at the National Gallery. She then worked closely with Dumbarton Oaks director John Thacher to decide the best way to display them in the newly designed modernist Pre-Columbian Pavilion. Consisting entirely of glass-walled round rooms, Benson recalled touring the new space and remarking to Thacher: "It's a beautiful building. How do you put anything in it?" Together with Thacher and James Mayo, a staff member at the Smithsonian, Benson devised a series of plexiglass cases that would display the objects as though they were floating in mid-air. In addition to her work stewarding the Pre-Columbian object collection, Benson was also a key figure in the establishment of a Pre-Columbian scholarly program of studies at Dumbarton Oaks. She invited Yale anthropology professor

Michael Coe Michael Douglas Coe (May 14, 1929 – September 25, 2019) was an American archaeologist, anthropologist, epigrapher, and author. He is known for his research on pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, particularly the Maya, and was among the foremost Mayan ...

to give a public lecture which was subsequently published and became the inaugural volume in the series ''Dumbarton Oaks Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology''. She initiated the first Pre-Columbian Studies Symposium in 1967 on the subject of the

Olmec The Olmecs () were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that t ...

, and served as organizer for 12 symposia in total through the 60s and 70s on topics ranging from writing systems to ritual sacrifice to metallurgy.

Publications

Betty Benson published and edited many works over the course of her life, ranging from poetry to mysteries to scholarly publications, continuing to publish until she was well into her eighties. She wrote a series of mystery stories set in Maine which were published in ''

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' is a bi-monthly American digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction, and mystery fiction. Launched in fall 1941 by Mercury Press, ''EQMM'' is named after the fict ...

'' and ''

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine ''Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine'' (AHMM) is a bi-monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime and detective fiction. ''AHMM'' is named for Alfred Hitchcock, the famed director of suspense films and television. History ''AHM ...

''. She did most of her mystery writing at a vacation home which she purchased in the 1960s in Sunset, Maine, and used the pseudonym Augusta Hancock as a nod to the state's capital. In the field of Pre-Columbian studies she wrote dozens of articles and several books on subjects such as the Bliss collection of Pre-Columbian art, animal themes in Andean and Mesoamerican iconography, and the Moche, an Andean culture of the 2nd-8th centuries CE. Her book ''The Mochica: A Culture of Peru'' was the first full-length monograph to be dedicated to the Moche.

References

External links

Interview with Elizabeth P. Benson
in the Dumbarton Oaks Oral History Archive, May 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Benson, Elizabeth P. 1924 births 2018 deaths 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers 20th-century Mesoamericanists American art historians American Mesoamericanists American women historians Andean scholars Historians of Mesoamerican art Mayanists Olmec scholars Women art historians Women Mesoamericanists American University faculty and staff 21st-century American women American women curators American curators