Noted Photographer, Harry Benson to Make In-Person Appearance at Contessa Gallery in Southampton, Book Signing and Works Exhibition August 31 and September 1

SOUTHAMPTON, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES, August 28, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Contessa Gallery is pleased to present an exclusive exhibition and book signing event with the award-winning photographer Harry Benson. Arriving in America with the Beatles in 1964, Benson has spent his six-decade career photographing politicians, musicians, actors, athletes, writers, artists, soldiers, and activists. Considered the finest photographic chronicler of American pop culture, Benson has photographed every U.S. president from Eisenhower to Trump. He was feet away when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, in the room when Nixon resigned, with Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Meredith March, and with Coretta Scott King at her husband’s funeral. Benson chronicled the building of the Berlin Wall and its fall and covered the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Benson has had more than forty solo gallery exhibitions and has published sixteen books on his photography.

Benson has taken over one hundred cover shots for People Magazine and has had his photography featured in Architectural Digest and Newsweek. He was under contract with LIFE Magazine from 1970 to 2000.

Harry Benson was born near Glasgow, Scotland in 1929 and was assigned to travel with the Beatles on their first American tour in 1964. Benson describes the night in which he learned that he would be traveling to America with the band: “Late one night in January 1964, the phone rang in my London flat. It was the night picture editor of a London newspaper, asking me to fly to Paris with the Beatles to cover their first trip abroad as England’s top popstars.” That phone call is where Benson’s exclusive relationship with the Beatles began. One of Benson’s most iconic images shows the band in a gleeful pillow fight in a hotel room after learning they would perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. This image displays one of the band’s rare unguarded moments, marking the moment before the band changed American pop culture forever.

The Beatles: On the Road 1964 – 1966 celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Beatles coming to America. This beautiful book includes intimate portraits from the famous pillow fight at the Georges V hotel to the hysterical young female crowds, from TV studios to backstage… Benson’s camera captured everything.

In 2013 Harry received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from The University of St. Andrews, Scotland. On January 1, 2009, Harry was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and received his honor at Buckingham Palace in March. In November 2009, Harry received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society in London. Harry was honored with a Doctor of Letters from the Glasgow School of Art and Glasgow University in 2007. Twice named NPPA Magazine Photographer of the Year, Harry received the 2005 LUCIE Award for Lifetime Achievement in Portrait Photography, the 2005 AMERICAN PHOTO Magazine Award for Achievement in Photography, the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Scottish Press Photographers Association, and has twice received the Leica Medal of Excellence.

His photographs are in the permanent collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Both museums hosted his Harry Benson: Being There exhibition (2006-7). A major retrospective exhibition of Harry’s photographs was at Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow from June to September 2008.

Harry’s photographs continue to appear in major magazines including Vanity Fair, Town & Country, Architectural Digest, Time, Newsweek, Vice, Paris Match, and The London Sunday Times Magazine.

Please join us for the artist’s reception at Contessa Gallery on Saturday, August 31, from 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm and Sunday, September 1, from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm. Enjoy refreshments, meet the artist, and get a book personally signed with all acquisitions. The exhibition will be on view from August 31 until September 30. A percentage of all sales from this exhibition will benefit the Southampton Arts Center.

For inquiries on works, please contact Steve Hartman, owner of Contessa Gallery, at (216) 956-2825 or steve@contessagallery.com

To RSVP, please contact: art@contessagallery.com

Steve Hartman
Contessa Gallery
+1 (216) 956-2825
steve@contessagallery.com
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