Ben Cameron

Artist's Interior

c. 1965

Ben Cameron was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His education followed his broad spectrum of interests in the arts. His first degree was from St. Louis University in 1962 in Speech and Dramatic Art. Then he studied fashion at Traphagen School of Fashion in New York in 1964. As he turned more toward visual art, he studied Studio Art and Art History at Washington University in St. Louis from 1963-65. He earned his MA in painting from the University of Iowa in 1966 and then followed his professor to The University of Cincinnati for the MFA Painting in 1967. Cameron began his teaching career in Fashion and Art at Stephens College,Columbia, Missouri, then moved on to the University of Missouri, straddling the same two fields. In 1974 he began his long tenure in the Art Department at Columbia College, retiring in 2015. He especially enjoyed his turn at running the Larson Gallery. His classrooms usually had the appearance of a combination of a giant still life with examples of work and source material for art. Between the above dates he packed in a career teaching the arts and prolific production of paintings, prints, and drawings. Cameron’s unique style and voice as a painter became evident with a series of highly-expressive, representational scenes painted large scale in the mid to late 1960s. These works contain a very broad palette with numerous colors forming every area of light and shadow. Still lifes with the same, highly-energetic color work and thick paint application are interspersed with figurative works of this era. Later paintings focus on singular subjects and bold, solid background fields.