1950s-60s Paris

An Enterprising Clochard

The first time Benjamin travelled to Paris in the early1950s, as a 'penniless' art student, he carried nothing but his sketch book and some carving tools he never used and had to sell for a few francs for food. A journalist he met by accident took him to meet the famous artist Fernand Leger, who was impressed by his sketches and offered him lessons in trade for help as a translator with a group of Americans who were coming to study in his atelier.

When he returned to Paris in 1957 on a French Government Bourse, he lived at 9 Git-le-Coeur, a no-name residence known as The Beat Hotel, where he met many of the Beat Generation writers —William Burroughs, Alan Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and many other creative innovators. This grungy Left Bank hotel was later made famous by the book of the same name by photographer Harold Chapman who lived there for several years; he also took photos of Benjamin painting in a borrowed studio.

He also made pocket money drawing versions of the well-known Van Gogh paintings on the pavement of the Pont Neuf. Sometimes if he left his pitch and returned, he would find a clochard collecting money by his drawing!

In an unposted letter, Benjamin wrote to his wife Stella on the back of an etching proof, he recounted his recent visit to a show of Modern American painters, which was about the most exciting show I have seen for years.

Mixed media drawing, Paris, 1958

Harold Chapman photography of Anthony Benjamin

Harold Chapman photographed Benjamin and the leading art critic Jean Yves Mock who reviewed his exhibition in Apollo magazine. He also had significant shows in Paris at Gallery Raymond Duncan (brother of Isadora Duncan), and in London at the Obelisk Gallery and the AIA Gallery. Benjamin’s new abstract style received positive attention in the art press on both sides of the English Channel.