'Sunset Landscape' by Rainey Bennett, 1958, American Post Impressionist, Metropolitan Museum, Whitney Museum, Moma

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Signed lower right, in graphite, 'Rainey Bennett' (American, 1907-1998) and dated 1958; titled, verso, 'Romantic Landscape' and accompanied by original … Read more Signed lower right, in graphite, 'Rainey Bennett' (American, 1907-1998) and dated 1958; titled, verso, 'Romantic Landscape' and accompanied by original backing bearing original Charles Feingarten exhibition label.

Rainey Bennett first studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and, subsequently, at the Art Students League in New York. Over the course of a long career, he exhibited widely and with success including at the Downtown Gallery, New York, Art Institute of Chicago (1948), University of Illinois (1949), the Cleveland Museum, Toledo Museum, Whitney Museum, the New York Museum of Modern Art and the Fairweather Hardin Gallery in Chicago. Rainey Bennett's work may be found in the collections of numerous national museums including the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, the Art Institute of Chicago and the St. Louis Art Museum.

In addition to his painting, Bennett also worked as a freelance book illustrator and, for many years, illustrated the Christmas newspaper ads for Marshall Field's. In 1960, he wrote and illustrated the successful children's book, 'The Secret Hiding Place'.

From 1934 to 1943, initially through the WPA, Bennett created numerous murals for the Section of Painting and Sculpture, later called the Section of Fine Arts, of the Treasury Department. In 1938, he created painted murals for the post offices in Dearborn, Michigan and Rushville, Illinois and, in 1941, for the Naperville, Illinois post office. See less