Ben Schonzeit

Ben Schonzeit, like many other art students in the 1960s, was heavily influenced by Abstract Expressionism. A native of New York, Schonzeit attended Cooper Union and received his Bachelor of Art degree in 1964. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he became interested in hard-edge painting and Minimalism before embracing Photorealism. Schonzeit was included in major exhibitions of Photorealism organized by art dealer Louis Meisel in the 1970s along with Richard Estes, Chuck Close, and James Rosenquist, among others.