Elizabeth Campbell Benton, Class of 1921, was a Fine and Applied Arts major from Minneapolis, MN. An active student, interested as much in dramatics as fine art, she served as Exchange Editor of “Quarterly” (1919-1920); was a member of the Press Board (1920-1921); adapted Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for the May Day Pageant (1920); was student chairman of the “Mediaeval Bazaar (1921); and was Editor-in-Chief of the Eromdiks (1920-1921). Her yearbook entry reads: “Alert she is, like a perky small bird, peering brighteyed into every corner that might hold an ‘Idea’, poking that impudent turned-up nose into all sorts of ‘busy-ness’ that—presto!—begins to emerge from chaos and move swiftly to a glorious climax. What great schemes have popped into and out of that clever bobbed head! From our lovely, fanciful May Day to a long-needed, but never-before-supposed-possible Publication Room; from a most effective setting for an Omnibus play, made of a few sheets and some green lights wheedled from Mr. Hoge, to a truly marvellous smock, ‘that hasn’t any fastenings at all, my dear, you just step into it and there you are—four minutes from bed to breakfast’! She says she is going to ‘illustrate’, preferably in New York—which means, according to Mr. Webster, to illuminate, to brighten up. Go to, Beth!”
Upon graduation, Elizabeth moved to New York and began a 4-year apprenticeship with the gem engraver Ottavio Negri, while also working as a life model in the evenings to supplement her income. In 1925, she left for Italy to further her studies, and in Rome met her future husband and fellow artist, Charles M. Sutherland. The couple moved to the outskirts of Paris for a time and returned permanently to the United States in 1927, settling into an apartment in Greenwich Village, where Elizabeth set up a studio for gem engraving. In the 1940s, the family moved to Bronxville, NY and Elizabeth continued her work, later publishing a book, The Romance of Seals and Engraved Gems (The MacMillan Company, 1965). Both her daughter (Jan Sutherland, Class of 1950) and granddaughter (Jenny Fairservis, Class of 1984) attended Skidmore.
