Fletcher Benton (b. 1931, d. 2019) is widely known for his kinetic art as well as his large-scale metal abstract geometric sculptures. After graduating from Miami University in Ohio, a few hours from his hometown of Jackson, Benton moved to San Francisco in 1956, where he worked as a sign painter. After traveling through Europe and a stint in New York, he returned to San Francisco, which remained his base. His sculptural work of the mid-1960s included motorized paintings and was exhibited in the first international exhibition of kinetic sculpture at the University Art Museum in Berkeley, California, alongside work from such artists as David Smith and George Rickey, whom Benton greatly admired. In the late 1970s, Benton abandoned kinetic art and instead began working with more traditional sculpture media: namely bronze and steel, which he works with to this day. After creating a number of large-scale sculptures in the 1980s and early ’90s, Benton returned to smaller scale works that continued to balance the concepts of mass and space.
He has had large-scale steel sculptures permanently installed worldwide at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco; Grounds for Sculpture park in Hamilton, New Jersey; the city of Cologne, Germany; and the city of Berlin, among elsewhere. In 2008, he was a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award from the International Sculpture Center. A longtime educator, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1993 by Miami University at the Miami University Art Museum. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.