Untitled, 1986

Fletcher Benton (1931-2019)

Painted Steel

City of Beverly Hills with a donation by Dr. Bernard Salick

Fletcher Benton began as an abstract expressionist painter - and beatnik - in postwar San Francisco, but when he turned to sculpture his sense of order got the better of him. Fortunately, Benton's sense of play never left, and the legacy he has left behind, particularly in the public spaces of California and many other places, is one of geometric syncopation, coloristic verve, and the wit and drama of emphatic scalar shifts. All these factors can be seen at play in this untitled work, whose vertical reach echoes nearby trees and buildings but radiates its own energy.