Benjamin E. Shute, painter, printmaker, teacher, arts advocate, and co-founder of the Atlanta College of Art, was born in Altoona, Wisconsin on July 13, 1905. He studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago where he studied under George and Henriette Amiard Oberteuffer, and Allen Philbrick.  

Shute taught painting and printmaking at the High Museum of Art from 1928 until 1943. He also served as director of the museum, dean of the school, and head of the fine arts department. He retired in 1970. Shute painted in Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, New England, and Canada. In 1948, he received a Carnegie Travel Grant in 1948 which allowed him to travel to and paint in Mexico.

He was a member of and exhibited with the Salmagundi Club in New York, the Southern States Art League, the Georgia Art Association, the Atlanta Art Guild, and the National Society of Painters in Casein. He also co-founded the Southeastern Annual Art Exhibition in 1945 and chaired it until 1961.

The work of Benjamin Shute is represented in the High Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta, Georgia; the Jule Collins Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University, Alabama; and the Booth Western Art Museum, Cartersville, Georgia.

Benjamin E. Shute died in Atlanta, Georgia on July 15, 1986.