George Benjamin Luks

American (1867-1933)

Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania in 1867, painter George Benjamin Luks began his artistic training at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia under Thomas Anshutz and went on to study in Dusseldorf, Paris and London. In 1894, Luks returned to Philadelphia where he came to know Everett Shinn, Robert Henri, William Glackens, and John Sloan. These friends, along with Maurice Prendergast, Arthur B. Davies, Ernest Lawson formed “the Eight,” an artist collective and social realist movement born out of the New York street scene and closely tied to the Ashcan School. In addition to the Eight, Luks was a member of the Boston Art Club, National Arts Club of New York, New York Water Color Club, Portrait Society of America and the Society of Independent Artists. A committed instructor, Luks taught at the Art Students League of New York from 1920 to 1924, and later from his studio.

Luks exhibited at the Armory Show in New York in 1913, the Panama Pacific Exhibition of 1915, Art Institute of Chicago, Corcoran Gallery, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Smithsonian Institute of American Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and at the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

Luks’ work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, Milwaukee Art Institute, Detroit Art Institute, Cleveland Museum of Art, Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., Barnes Museum in Philadelphia, and Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute in Ithaca, New York.