Tressa Pond Emerson Benson

Tressa Pond Emerson Benson was born in Bucksport, Maine in 1896. She attended Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, VA and then Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY where she achieved a bachelor of Fine Arts degree. She studied painting with artist Charles Hawthorne. In 1923, she won a fellowship to study painting in Europe, where she attended the Academy Colorossi and the Academy de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris. In 1925, she took a teaching position at the College of Fine Arts at University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE. In 1930, she met her husband there, artist and fellow instructor, Ben Benson. The couple left Nebraska that year and settled in Chicago.

Benson exhibited numerous times at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. She also exhibited at such important venues as the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, the Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL and through the Chicago Society of Artists at Delphic Studios, New York, NY. She won numerous prizes for her artwork. Later in life, she was the director of art at Avery Coonley School in Downers Grove, IL. In 1987, she died at the ago of 90 in Tallahassee, FL.