Roloff Beny
(1924–)
(–1984)
Roloff Beny
1924–1984
Roloff Beny (1924–1984) was a Canadian photographer, printmaker, painter, and book designer, born in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Beny is known for his photographic travels throughout the world.
He studied at the University of Toronto and received his Bachelor of Arts and Fine Arts degrees in 1945 and continued on to take art classes at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Afterward, Beny received a scholarship into the Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts program at the State University of Iowa. During this time, Beny studied under the guidance of engraver and printer Mauricio Lasansky and graduated in 1947. Following an Art History Fellowship at Columbia University and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, Beny travelled throughout Europe to develop his photographic interests.
In the early 1940s and 1950s Beny was predominantly a painter and printmaker, achieving moderate success through his modernist abstract aesthetic, before turning to photography and book illustration. In 1953, he was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for printmaking and painting.
It was not until Beny transitioned into photography that allowed him to achieve international recognition. Beny travelled around the world to take photographs. He spent much of his life in Rome and was primarily interested in photographing Greco-Roman sculpture and architecture, as well as Renaissance sites and churches. During this time, Beny developed portraits of many important figures, totalling approximately 500 identified sitters and numerous unidentified sitters. Beny also developed series that depicted Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist sacred sites. Beny photographed over 30,000 images of every major town, and many isolated villages while in an extensive residency in Iran. Many of his photographic work won awards throughout his career, including The Thrones of Earth and Heaven in 1958 and his lavish “coffee table books.” During his time in Rome, Beny developed portraits of many important figures, totalling approximately 500 identified sitters and numerous unidentified sitters.
Beny's work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and the Yale University Art Gallery.
In 1972 Beny was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.