Fletcher Benton: the Kinetic Years

Fletcher Benton first received international recognition in his career as a kinetic artist bringing motion to his pieces with battery-powered motors. An active and innovative participant of the kinetic art movement that had evolved in the early part of the twentieth century out of Constructivism with Alexander Calder's mobile and the work of Jean Tinguely, Benton's contribution was that he was considered the colorist of the movement. For thirty years Benton would set circles, triangles, and parallelograms of solid colors to motion creating kaleidoscopic effects with his moving sculptures. As author Diane Ghirado points out in her essay, "Benton's works fusing color, form, and time, implying change in a compelling resolution that appears deceptively simple?he has achieved a truly sophisticated development of time and color change studies." 270 colour illustrations