Harry Benson
Scottish, b. 1929
Eminent photojournalist Harry Benson has been capturing historic world events and figures over the course of his celebrated career, building up a body of color and black-and-white photographs that chronicles the tumultuous decades from the 1950s to now. His career skyrocketed in 1964, when he documented the Beatles on their first American tour, and took the now-iconic photograph of the foursome having a pillow fight in bed. On assignment for such publications as the Daily Express and LIFE Magazine , he has marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., photographed every U.S. president since Dwight Eisenhower, innumerable world leaders, artists, and celebrities, and been at the center of such watershed events as the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall and the resignation of Richard Nixon. “Wherever I am,” Benson claims, “the one thing I must do—I must tell the truth.”
Artist statement
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1929, amid the turmoil of World War II, Benson published his first photograph at the age of sixteen. He launched his career on London’s fiercely competitive Fleet Street, but his life—and photography—changed forever in 1964, when he was assigned to accompany The Beatles on their first trip to America. The result: some of the most enduring images of the 20th century’s most influential band. Benson never looked back after arriving in the United States. Legendary Scottish photojournalist Harry Benson lives and works primarily in Manhattan, New York, alongside his wife and collaborator.
