Douglas Bentham

Douglas Bentham (born 1947) has been since the late 1960s, acknowledged as one of Canada's pre-eminent producer of large-scale welded steel sculpture. as Caro made a series of 15 sculptures, in which he combined found materials with steel tubing and beams. He went back to school in 1989 to get his master's degree in sculpting and credits his father, who worked as a mechanic, as the driving force behind his interest in sculpting with metal.

Bentham lives and works in his studio on an acreage near Dundurn, Saskatchewan. The Mendel Art Gallery, in his home city of Saskatoon, presented a major exhibition of his work, "Resonance", in 2004. Bentham's first installation, Installed in symmetrical rows, the collection of metal assemblages of textured bronze and brass panels infused with fractured text, numbers and dates contributed to a narrative about time. More recently, small-scale sculptures in brass and bronze were displayed at the Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, which represents him, in 2019

Bentham has participated in over one hundred group shows throughout his career, both here and abroad.

Commissions Bentham's commissioned works are in many outdoor settings across Canada. Particularly well-known is his stainless steel sculpture, Unfurled (2006), in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, cited at the foot of University Bridge. The painted steel sculpture Garland (2008), installed at Durham College (DC) and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) on the north Oshawa campus, although not specifically commissioned for the location, has a spiraling motion that gives the appearance of upward movement suitable to its original intention as a design for a Spirit of Youth competition in Saskatoon, and to its Oshawa location as well. In 2015, Bentham won a national competition for Skater’s Arch, a monumental circular structure in painted steel for Rogers Place Arena, Edmonton, Alberta. He was commissioned to execute a large-scale wall sculpture, Nine Planes X Full Flight, in painted galvanized steel which he installed at Royal View Plaza, Calgary, Alberta, in 2016.

Selected collections Bentham's sculptures are included in public collections throughout Canada, and significantly, in the Remai Modern in Saskatoon.