BROOKLYN, NY.- Immortalizing the people and moments that have defined the past 60 years, world-renowned photojournalist Harry Benson has become as much a part of history as the photographs themselves. The scope of his accomplishments as a photojournalist is nothing short of remarkable: he has photographed every US president since Eisenhower, as well as Robert F. Kennedy on the night he was assassinated, and Martin Luther King Jr. at his funeral; he has shot stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger, Dolly Parton, Michael Jackson, Greta Garbo, and Truman Capote; he covered both the rise and fall of the Berlin wall, the IRA hunger strikes, the Freedom March through Mississippi, the Watts riots, 9/11, and conflicts in Kuwait, Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Israel, and the West Bank; and, on the eve of his eightieth birthday, Benson is still at it, crisscrossing the globe on assignment for Condé Nast.
Harry Benson: Photographs is a visual celebration of Benson’s incomparable career’s work in the realms of celebrity, art, fashion, sports, politics, and photojournalism and features a distinctive mix of iconic images alongside never-before-published photographs of Sir Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diana, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Billy Graham, Bobby Fischer, Muhammad Ali, the Beatles, Sonny Liston, Chuck Berry, O.J. Simpson, Yogi Berra, Sophia Loren, Kate Moss, Gloria Swanson, James Brown, Fred Astaire, Johnny Carson, Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Clint Eastwood, Woody Allen, Spike Lee, Alfred Hitchcock, Federico Fellini, Joseph Papp, R. Crumb, Andy Warhol, Liza Minelli, Barbra Streisand, Halston, Giorgio Armani, Valentino, Diana Vreeland, and countless others. With incomparable access to the most elusive, alluring, and enduring legends of our time, Benson’s magnum opus is unsurpassed masterpiece of contemporary photojournalism and portraiture.
Scottish born photojournalist Harry Benson began his career at the Hamilton Advertiser before moving to Fleet Street where he worked for the Daily Sketch and the Daily Express. Benson traveled to America with the Beatles in 1964 and decided to stay. He was the most published photographer in Life magazine before it closed, and is currently under contract to Vanity Fair and Architectural Digest. When Queen Elizabeth's 2009 New Year's Honors List was announced recently, Benson was named a Commander of the British Empire (CBE). The Glasgow School of Art and Glasgow University awarded Benson a Doctor of Letters in 2008. Benson has also twice won the prestigious National Press Photographer Association’s Magazine Photographer of the Year award (1981 and 1985), the 2005 LUCIE Award for Lifetime Achievement in Portrait Photograph, the 2005 American Photo Award for Photography, and the 2005 Scottish National Press Photographer's Lifetime Achievement Award.
Benson has had 40 one-man exhibitions of his work in the US and Europe including a 50-year retrospective of his work at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh (2006); the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. (2007); and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow (2008). Benson is the author of 13 books including R.F.K.: A Photographer’s Journal (powerHouse Books, 2008), Harry Benson’s America (Harry N. Abrams, 2005), Harry Benson: 50 Years in Pictures (Harry N. Abrams, 2001), and Once There Was a Way…Photographs of the Beatles by Harry Benson (Harry N. Abrams, 2003). Benson lives in New York and Florida with his wife, Gigi, who works with him on his exhibitions and books. Their two daughters live and work in Los Angeles.
John Loring served as New York Bureau Chief of Architectural Digest and has been a contributing writer to the magazine for over 30 years. He has also served as Design Director of Tiffany & Co. for 30 years. He has written 23 books on style and social history. A graduate of Yale University, Loring completed four years of graduate studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and has an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute.
