Philomene Bennett, a founding mother of Kansas City’s contemporary art scene, dies at 89

Editor’s note: This story was originally published on Sept. 25 by KCUR and is republished here with their permission.

The painter, ceramicist and printmaker Philomene Bennett died September 25 at the age of 89 after a battle with stomach cancer.

Bennett was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1935. The youngest of six children, she discovered a passion for art early in life. She attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she received her BFA in 1956.

“Whenever I work, it’s like I have a conversation with me, and myself. It’s about the conversation that is going on and how strong it is and how interesting it is,” Bennett told KCPT in 2015. “If it’s boring I have to figure out what to do to make that conversation better.”

Bennett’s paintings can be found in the collections of the Kemper Museum and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Daum Museum in Sedalia, Kansas. Her paintings, ceramics and prints have been included in over 100 solo and group exhibitions. Her work also found an audience beyond the Midwest. She was featured in a group show “A Kansas Collection: A Harvest of the Best from Kansas Artists” at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, which opened in Washington, D.C., in 1987.

A distinctive style

Bennett was known for her large-scale, colorful, abstract paintings and prints. She was a fixture in the Kansas City art community. Photographer Roy Inman spent time with Bennett as she worked in her studio in the 1970s.

“She was just so laser-focused on the work,” Inman said. He said Bennett worked quickly and was deliberate with her brush. “Every stroke, she’s just moving around at the speed of light. It was really fascinating to watch.”

Bennett and her husband of 43 years, Louis Marak, held the first meeting of the Kansas City Artists Coalition in their studio above the restaurant Poor Freddies in the River Market. It was 1975, and known then as the River Quay. The meeting’s agenda was “How the Artist Can Benefit From Centralization.”

“We decided we’d put out a paper saying, ‘Calling all artists, we’re having a meeting, and we don’t know who you are, but we want to meet you all, blah blah blah,’ whatever it was,” Bennett told KCUR in 2016 . “And we sent this out and we went down there thinking we’d have two people. It was packed. We couldn’t even get in the door.”

Bennett said when she arrived from Nebraska in 1956, Kansas City had art institutions like the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Kansas City Art Institute and corporations like Hallmark Cards. But few local galleries featured contemporary work. She wanted to meet other artists and build an arts community.

“I thought it was just important to get all these people together and make belligerent conviction of their art, by God,” Bennett told KCUR.

Bennett and Marak sought to create a community where artists could share ideas and support each other. Former Kansas City Artists Coalition Executive Director Janet Simpson said Bennett and her husband reached many people over the years.

“Philomene is just a force and her impact can’t be overstated.” Simpson said. “She was so generous with her time, her goodwill, and her generosity of spirit, which isn’t always the case with artists.”

Simpson retired in 2018, after serving as executive director for three decades. Often she’d see Bennett and Marak at gallery openings.

“People would light up and they would just flock to her, and the same thing with Lou,” Simpson remembered. “People gravitated toward them and wanted to be in their light, and to be in that bubble of joy.”

It was a characteristic Inman noticed, too.

“She really cared about people and she cared about art,” Inman remembered. “She was just the most accepting, loving person. No kidding. She was just amazing.”

The artist Jane Booth started out as a student of Bennett and the two later became close friends.

“She walked through life and she created beauty with every spare moment,” Booth said. “She raised five children and when they were young, she would put them to bed and she would go out to her studio in the garage and she would paint until the early hours of the morning, because she just had to do it.”

Bennett dressed artfully, wearing fluttering silk shirts, tall hats, and big black boots. Booth said she created a stir wherever she went.

“She would just drape her fingers in big, heavy silver Southwestern jewelry on all ten digits with bracelets that just stacked halfway up her forearm and put on a high crowned hat and go out and meet the city and she knew everybody,” Booth remembered. “There was always just that pop, pop, sparkle, sparkle, pop, pop going on for her.”

Almost 50 years after that first meeting of artists in the River Quay, Courtney Wasson has taken over as the current executive director of the Artists Coalition. Earlier this year, Bennett stopped by the gallery to see the work donated to the nonprofit’s Annual Art Auction . Both Marak and Bennett donated many pieces to the fundraiser over the years.

Wasson said Bennett cultivated a culture of uplifting artists and it is a legacy that continues to this day.

“Whenever I hear someone speak about Philomene, they speak about how foundational she was to their career,” Wasson said. “And that’s truly because of her gift and what she was willing to give of herself and to others and to our community.”

Inman remembered the bohemian scene as the Artists Coalition was being founded in 1970s-era River Quay where artists and musicians mingled together. People would often gather in Bennett and Marak’s studio in an inclusive, salon-style environment.

“We would stay up to all hours talking about art, life, love, politics, and the world,” Inman remembered. “It was the way I imagined that it might have been on the left bank in Paris in the ‘20s and ‘30s. They were so welcoming and accepting of everybody.

“Lou and Philomene were just so much a part of that,” Inman continued. “That was just a very special time. Everybody was so, so sorry to see it, to see it go.”

After mafia violence in the River Quay drove Bennett and Marak from their studio, they settled in a 2 ½-acre farm in Lenexa where a remodeled 1890s-era farmhouse and barn served as their home and studio. In 1988, the city council voted to condemn their farm to widen Renner Road in order to make way for a new business corridor. The couple rallied their friends and neighbors and held a widely publicized public battle with the city. Ultimately, the city prevailed and purchased the farm. The two had to relocate.

The Lenexa city council’s decision left a lot of bitterness.

“That was a hard one for them,” Simpson said. “You know, I think that one really — I don’t think they ever got over losing that.”

Bennett and Marak decamped to Santa Fe, New Mexico, for almost a decade before returning to Kansas City.

Not long after returning, the two opened a new studio in the West Bottoms on Union Street where Bennett hosted independent study sessions for students of art in drawing, painting, and ceramics. She encouraged her students to find their own voice in the artwork they created.

“I think you have to realize that you are uniquely you,” Bennett told KCPT in 2015. “There isn’t anybody else like you. And that you also have experiences that are uniquely yours. You have all this richness that you can use to do a painting.”

Former student Jane Booth said that Bennett was able to meet each person in her class right where they were and she did not have preconceived ideas about the direction their art should take.

“She really taught us to be authentic, which I think is where all the great art comes from,” Booth said. “She made marks that changed people’s lives. She changed my life profoundly and I owe her everything. ”

Bennett expressed her thoughts about the way art shaped her life in an artist statement when the Artist Coalition held a retrospective of the couple’s work in 2006:

“Our work is paramount to us and weʼve made a lot of it. People often ask us where we get our ideas, what inspires us, how do we do it? All I can say is I draw from the life around me. I’ve always said its somewhat like osmosis, I absorb everything and it comes out in the work. Nothing else makes sense to me.”

Bennett’s husband Louis Marak preceded her in death. He died in 2020.