Elizabeth P. Benson

[3] After completing her undergraduate studies at Wellesley, Benson returned to Washington D.C. She was a painter as well as a writer, publishing works of poetry and detective fiction and exhibiting her paintings in local galleries.

Prior to the construction of the Pre-Columbian Pavilion at Dumbarton Oaks, Mr. Bliss loaned his collection for display at the Gallery[5] and developed a personal working relationship with Benson when he would stop by to bring new objects to be shown.

Benson recalled his visits in her oral history with Dumbarton Oaks, remarking that he would come to the Gallery "sometimes with a little object in his pocket, a piece of jade or something, and he would say, 'I want you to see my latest temptation,' or something like that.

"[6] Together with Thacher and James Mayo, a staff member at the Smithsonian, Benson devised a series of plexiglass cases that would display the objects as though they were floating in mid-air.

She invited Yale anthropology professor Michael Coe to give a public lecture which was subsequently published and became the inaugural volume in the series Dumbarton Oaks Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology.

[6] She initiated the first Pre-Columbian Studies Symposium in 1967 on the subject of the Olmec, and served as organizer for 12 symposia in total through the 60s and 70s on topics ranging from writing systems to ritual sacrifice to metallurgy.