Claude Bentley

Claude Bentley (1915-1990) was a painter, printmaker, and muralist born in New York and raised in Chicago, where he would build both his artistic practice and teaching career. He studied at Northwestern University and at the Art Institute of Chicago, an institution with which he remained closely connected throughout his life, later serving on its faculty. As an educator, Bentley was committed to fostering technical discipline while encouraging intellectual curiosity and a broad view of global artistic traditions.

Bentley’s service in the armed forces during World War II, much of it spent in Africa, had a profound and lasting impact on his artistic development. Immersed in unfamiliar landscapes and cultures, he developed a deep appreciation for the art of Africa, Oceania, and Pre-Columbian South America. The symbolic imagery, geometric structures, and spiritual dimensions of these traditions became central to his own evolving visual language. Integrating abstracted forms and archetypal motifs, Bentley created compositions that balanced modernist abstraction with references to ancient and non-Western sources. He also became an avid collector, further deepening his understanding of these artistic lineages.

Bentley exhibited nationally at major institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Denver Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery, the San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. His work entered significant public collections, notably the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago, securing his reputation as a thoughtful and internationally minded contributor to American modernism.