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With unique access to the most intriguing and enduring legends of our time, Harry Benson: Persons of Interest is a compelling masterpiece of photojournalism and portraiture.
Celebrating Benson’s 60+ year career and featuring photographs spanning his early years on London’s Fleet Street to his arrival in New York in 1964 with the Beatles, to marching with Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights movement, to being present at RFK’s assassination, to scores of Hollywood and music and sports legends, and right up to the present as the only person who has photographed the last twelve Presidents from Eisenhower to Trump, Benson’s unparalleled magnum opus is to be published following the massive success of the Magnolia Pictures documentary film, Harry Benson: Shoot First (2016).
With decades spent deliberately being in the just the right place at just the the right time, Benson’s photographs and writings of his encounters and adventures are sure to be of broad interest to photography afficionados, history lovers, and people young and old. With subjects ranging from Queen Elizabeth to Amy Winehouse, from Frank Sinatra to Brad Pitt, from Greta Garbo to Kate Moss, from Winston Churchill to Hilary Clinton, and Donald Trump, Benson explores and delights our public fascination with his images of the lives of the rich, powerful, and famous.
In April 2017 Benson received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Center of Photography.
Critic Leonard Maltin said it all when he wrote, “Harry Benson has been witness to the key events of the past half-century and has never failed to capture their most telling moments with his camera.”
Award-winning Scottish photojournalist Harry Benson CBE began his career at the weekly Hamilton Advertiser newspaper and moved to the Scottish Daily Sketch after his exclusive interviews in prison with Scottish mass murderer Peter Manuel. By 1959 Harry had moved to London’s Fleet Street working for Lord Beaverbrooks’s Daily Express. Harry traveled to America with the Beatles in 1964 and never looked back.
Under contract to LIFE Magazine for 30 years, Harry has photographed for major magazines including Time, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, French Vogue, Quest, Paris Match, Forbes, Town & Country, Architectural Digest, People, and The London Sunday Times Magazine.
The documentary HARRY BENSON: SHOOT FIRST which chronicles Harry’s 65 year career was released in December 2016 by Magnolia Pictures to 5 star reviews.
In 2009 Harry was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for service to photography.
Harry received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from both St. Andrews University and Glasgow University, Scotland, and is an Honorary Fellow of London’s Royal Photographic Society. He has twice been named NPPA Magazine Photographer of the Year. In April 2017 he received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Center of Photography. Harry is the only photographer who has photographed the last 12 U.S. Presidents — from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to President Donald J. Trump.
Harry marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement, photographed the LA Watts Riots, was embedded in the Gulf War, was next to Robert Kennedy when he was assassinated, and has photographed countless luminaries including Sir Winston Churchill, President Charles de Gaulle, Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones, Elizabeth Taylor, Jack Nicholson, Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Kate Moss, and The British Royal Family, including a private sitting with Queen Elizabeth II in Buckingham Palace.There have been 40 gallery/museum solo photography exhibitions and sixteen books of his photographs have been published.
Harry’s wife, Gigi, works with him on his books and exhibitions. Their two daughters, Wendy and Tessa, live in Los Angeles with their families.
