Ben Aronson American, b. 1958

Ben Aronson (b. 1958) is a Massachusetts-based painter who is known for his high-contrast tones, boldly-applied paint and slashing marks that mirror the fast-moving realities of his cityscapes. Aronson completed his MFA at Boston University in 1980, studying under Philip Guston and John Woodrow Wilson, wherein he developed the combines of a photorealistic accuracy with gestural immediacy, portraying a world populated by urbane figures. “Ben Aronson paints the urban scene, but, more to the esthetic point, his paintings are eloquently urbane: not just painterly, but suavely painterly. There's a sophistication to his handling that matches the sophistication of his scenes: surface has come a long, civilized way since its gritty gestural days, just as New York has since the Depression, and Paris since it was the alembic of modern art and a bohemian haven. The "new" art is no longer "shocking" let alone new, nor is modernity: the dislocations of both have been assimilated and become trite. Art has moved on, and so has modern life, which no longer seems as "heroic" as Baudelaire thought it was. Aronson has brilliantly adapted to these changes rather than nostalgically beating an old drum about the tribulations of modernity and harping back to the old idea of "primitive" in-your-face painting.” - Donald Kuspit. Aronson’s works are held in the collections of Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Detroit Museum of Arts; De Young Museum; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; among other public and private collections.