Leslie Benson was born on March 15, 1885, in Mahone, Nova Scotia. He attended the School of Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Erie Pape School, and the Fenway School. He drew illustrations for magazines in the 1920’s and 1930’s and then became a book illustrator. Later in his life, Benson went into the field of religious art. He was a member of the Salmagundi Club, the Artist’s Guild, and the Society of Illustrators. For the WPA Federal Arts Project, Benson turned out 55 easel paintings, many of which were allocated to the Mystic Oral School, the Soldiers’ Home in Rocky Hill, Cedarcrest, Laurel Heights, and Undercliff Sanatoria, Center School in West Hartford, Long Lane Farm, and the Uncas on Thames Hospital. Benson died in September 1972 in a hospital in Tryon, North Carolina.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; AskART; Who Was Who in American Art (1985), p. 48; Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, pp. 64-65.