Born 150 Years Ago: W.T. Benda

Born 150 years ago today, illustrator and theatrical mask maker W.T. Benda (Wladyslaw T. Benda, 1873-1948)

Benda was a nephew of the great Polish actress Modjeska. Having studied art in his native Krakow and Vienna, Benda came to visit his famous aunt in the States around the turn of the previous century and simply stayed, continuing his studies at the Art Students League and the William Merritt Chase School. A contemporary of Maxfield Parrish, Norman Rockwell, and N.C. Wyeth, he illustrated books, designed posters and ads, and created graphics for popular magazines.

Our principal interest in Benda however is his work in the field of masks in theatrical productions, pageants, and films. He began to explore the field around 1914, sculpting them out of papier-mâché. His masks were used in Eugene O’Neill’s avant-garde plays of the teens and 20s, in revues like The Greenwich Village Follies of 1920, and in films like Dudley Murphy’sDanse Macabre (1922), Frank Tuttle’sThe American Venus (1926), The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), and Busby Berkley’s Broadway Serenade (1939). In the ’30s he wrote the Encyclopedia Britannica‘s essay on masks, and wrote an entire book on the topic, called simply Masks, in 1944.

There was a costume designer for theatre and film named Georges Benda (G.K. Benda); I don’t know if they were related.

I snapped this on a recent visit to The Society of Illustrators, admittedly because I thought it bore a humorous resemblance to George W. Bush. Please note the title:

In addition to belonging to professional organizations like The Society of Illustrators, Benda belong to many Polish-American cultural entities, and used his skills as an artist to drum up support for his people after Hitler’s invasion. His death in 1948 came just as Poland was being absorbed into the Communist bloc, entering yet another long night of tyranny.