Barton Lidice Benes

Barton Lidice Beneš (November 16, 1942 - Hackensack, New Jersey – May 30, 2012 - New York) was an artist who lived and worked in New York City. He studied at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York and Beaux-Arts, Avignon, France.

Barton Beneš made "museums" somewhat in the style of Joseph Cornell, which incorporate into shadow boxes bits and pieces that reveal the myths and ironies of life. The fragments in Beneš's museums often involve famous people and events, as do the sixteen collaged bits in this print, from a piece of Elizabeth Taylor's shoe to a crumb from the wedding cake of the Prince of Wales. Beneš's travelling exhibition series about AIDS, Lethal Weapons, is the focus of an independent documentary film released in 1997. Among the museums that have acquired his works are the Chicago Art Institute, the National Museum of American Art, the Albuquerque Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, and the North Dakota Museum of Art. Barton Beneš was interviewed in the documentary film Gay Sex in the 70s.

Beneš's apartment in New York contained his collection of over $1 million worth of African, Egyptian, and contemporary art, as well as his own. After his death in 2012 the interior of his apartment, including his shadow box museums, was relocated and reconstructed at the North Dakota Museum of Art, under the supervision of his friend and colleague Laurel Reuter, director of the museum. The exhibit opened in late 2013 and is called Barton's Place.