Ben Blessum

Like many of the early P&C members, Ben Blessum (1877 - 1954) was a painter who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and who also had a career in commercial art. LIke several others, he also went to the far west for awhile, making promotional posters for railways.

But his strongest connection seems to have been to his homeland, Norway, that he left with his parents at the age of 11, but to which he often returned. He even worked for a while in the New York travel office of Norwegian State Railways.

As you might agree, he was pretty sharp as both an oil painter and a graphic designer.

Click on the above detail to see a full page of newspaper clippings taken from the Palette and Chisel scrapbook for 1916. Some of the newsprint has deteriorated, but you can tell that his work was not without recognition.