Born in 1931 in Jackson, Ohio, Benton received his undergraduate degree in fine art at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He left Ohio and began teaching at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland in 1959. He also taught at the San Francisco Art Institute (1966-67) and at the San Jose campus of California State University (1967-86). His sculptures have been in solo and group exhibitions throughout that state since early in his career. Benton has also been given one-person shows in Belgium, Germany, Venezuela, Argentina, and Korea. Works by Benton are in the permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum, CO; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; The Milwaukee Art Center, WI, New Orleans Museum of Art, LA; Oakland Museum and Sculpture Garden, CA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY and other major museums, universities and corporations.


Selected Museum Collections
Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT
Anderson Collection, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
City of Offenbach, Germany
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ
Hartwood Acres Sculpture Park, Pittsburgh, PA
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Klingspor Museum, Offenbach, Germany
Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL
Kröller-Müller Museum and Sculpture Garden, Otterlo, the Netherlands
La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee, WI
Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Neuberger Museum, State University of New York at Purchase, NY
New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA
Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ
Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and Museum, Hamilton, OH
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
San Jose State University Sculpture Garden, San Jose, CA
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NB
Stanford University Museum of Art, Stanford, CA
University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, CA
University of California, Irvine, CA
University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA
University of Rio Grande, Rio Grande, OH
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY