Daniel van Benthuysen grew up in St. Louis, and spent summers in southwest Michigan. He graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans and has a master’s degree from Hofstra University on Long Island.

He worked for 29 years as a graphic designer, art director, and director of design, supervising dozens of artists in the pre-digital and transitional eras at Newsday, the Long Island newspaper.

Benthuysen taught courses in photojournalism and video editing, as well as print and web design at Hofstra for twelve years.

He worked as a monitor (a sort of teaching assistant) for seven years assisting James Lancel McElhinny in life drawing classes at the Art Students League of New York.  

Van Benthuysen was also an active member of the artist-run Upstream Gallery in Hastings-on-Hudson, just north of Manhattan. At Upstream, van Benthuysen had six solo shows, exhibiting landscapes in oil, watercolor, and etching. He has also exhibited extensively in New York City and the northeast.

In recent years van Benthuysen taught an adult drawing class as part of a continuing education program on Long Island. He’s also done month-long turns as an artist-in-residence in six different countries, most recently in Norway (in the high Arctic) and in Ireland.

Daniel and his wife Renee moved to Chicago in 2025, along with their cats, Orville and Wilbur.