ROLOFF BENY (1924-1984)

ROLOFF BENY was a  photographer, painter, printmaker, and book designer, born in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada.  He was a painter and print maker in the 1940s and early 1950s, but turned to photography and became known for his illustrated books.  He studied at the Banff school of fine arts under Andre Bieler and Bernard Middleton.  He also attended the University of Toronto, University of Iowa, Columbia University and New York University. 

His mediums included oil, watercolor, gouache, ink and engraving.  His work was influenced by the surrealists Yves Tanguy and Giorgio Di Chirico.  He was also influenced by the abstract expressionists.  After his first major exhibition, at London's Institute of Contemporary Art (1956), he published The Thrones of Earth and Heaven (1958), and subsequently established an international reputation for his photographs of Greek, Roman, and Italian Renaissance art, architecture, sculpture and of archaeological ruins.  He spent most of his life in Rome where he died.

Born Wilfred Roy Beny he later took as his first name Roloff, his mother's maiden name.  In his  early days, he was a protege of Peggy Guggenheim and Sir Herbert Read.  His friends included  Laurence Olivier, Bernard Berenson, Jean Cocteau, Henry Moore, and other luminaries of art and literature.

His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

In 1972, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, one of the county’s highest honours.

Roloff Beny's Books:
The Thrones of Earth and Heaven, 1958
A Time of Gods, 1962
Pleasure of Ruins, 1964
To Every Thing There is a Season, Roloff Beny in Canada, 1967
Japan in Color, 1967
India, 1969
Island Ceylon, 1970
Rajasthan, Land of Kings, 1974
Roloff Beny in Italy, 1974
Persia, Bridge of Turquoise, 1975
Iran, Elements of Destiny, 1978
The Churches of Rome, 1981
Odyssey: Mirror on the Mediterranean, 1981
The Gods of Greece, 1983
The Romance of Architecture, 1985 (posthumous)
Iceland, 1985 (posthumous)
Visual Journeys, 1994 (posthumous)
 

Prepared and contributed by M.D.Silverbrooke