John Benson

John Everett Benson (October 8, 1939 – June 13, 2024), known as Fud, was an American calligrapher, stonecarver, typeface designer and sculptor who created inscriptions for monuments including the John F. Kennedy memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, the National Gallery of Art, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, and the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC.

Life and work John Everett Benson was born in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1939. His mother, Esther Fisher Smith Benson, spoke using the archaic pronouns of Quaker "plain speech." Benson began working for his father, John Howard Benson, at the age of fifteen at The John Stevens Shop, which his father had purchased. He studied sculpture at Rhode Island School of Design. He specialized in Roman lettering.

His mallet was engraved with BY HAMMER& HAND after the old craftmans proverb "By hammer and hand do all things stand".

He designed and carved gravestones for Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman, Rachel Lambert Mellon

He drew various photo-typefaces for architectural applications and a titling typeface, called Aardvark, for The Font Bureau in Boston, Alexa, Balzano, and Caliban.

In 1993, he left the direction of The John Stevens Shop to his son, Nicholas "Nick" Benson and returned to sculpting full-time.

Latterly Benson was doing portrait and figurative work in clay and bronze at his studio in Newport, Rhode Island. He died in Newport on June 13, 2024, at the age of 85.

Awards Frederic W. Goudy Award, 2019