COLLECTION HIGHLIGHT: MAX BENJAMIN

Exhibition Date: January 9 - March 17, 2016
Reception Date: Saturday, January 9, 2016 - 2pm

Starting January 2016, MoNA will highlight artwork from its Permanent Collection on the second floor of the museum each quarter. Text panels will serve to educate visitors about the piece, such as the biography of the artist and historical context.

Max Benjamin studied painting at the University of Washington. He was an illustrator for Boeing, but left at age 30 to pursue art full time. Benjamin does not do any sketches for his paintings, but instead reworks them again and again, occasionally even sanding down the paint in order to fix a mistake. Benjamin often paints  a series of works that explore a topic or form and conclude with a “summation” painting. When asked what his paintings mean, Max will reply that he is “not going to try to tell you what to think.”