Painter Jason Benjamin dies at 50
The award-winning landscape and portrait painter was reported missing from the southwest NSW town of Carrathool last weekend.
Celebrated Australian artist Jason Benjamin has died at the age of 50.
The award-winning landscape and portrait painter was reported missing from the southwest NSW town of Carrathool last weekend.
On Tuesday he was found dead in the Murrumbidgee River about 1.40pm following a search of the area.
Benjamin was an Archibald Prize finalist multiple times and won the Packing Room Prize in 2005 for his painting of Australian actor Bill Hunter.
His other works in the competition included artist McLean Edwards and musicians Paul Kelly and Tim Rogers.
Ralph Hobbs, Benjamin’s Sydney art dealer at Nanda/Hobbs gallery, said the artist had “quite a few troubles over the years, but was pretty upbeat”.
“He was heading out to the bush to put together a new exhibition for us,” Hobbs said. “The last thing I said to him was ‘stay safe’.”
Benjamin presented his first show with Nanda/Hobbs at the beginning of 2020. The new collection he was piecing together — his second for the gallery — featured paintings as well as poetry.
Hobbs described a deep romanticism in Benjamin’s work, referencing the “light-filled space, the big skies, the trees and the emptiness”.
While Benjamin was born in Melbourne, he went to study at the Pratt Institute in New York City in 1989. Shortly after he arrived, he had his first formal art exhibition — a group show in Manhattan.
After returning to Australia in 1990, he won the Mosman Art Prize in 1993, 1994 and 1996.
“He never just painted a landscape. He would paint something that had an extreme meaning,” Hobbs said. “A lone tree would represent him, a flock of birds were his family, for example.”
His work has been exhibited at the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Parliament House collection, as well as numerous private collections around the world.
Benjamin’s paintings are on a wide pricing spectrum with some selling for $800 and others $60,000.
Hobbs said his gallery “never had a lot” of Benjamin’s work, as it sold “so quickly”.
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