Anthony Benjamin (1931 – 2002)

Biography: An English artist noted for his abstracts, Anthony Benjamin was born in Hampshire and studied art at the Regent Street Polytechnic. In 1955 he moved to a cottage near St Ives, where he produced paintings abstracted from the Cornish landscape and sea, but that also revealed an early appreciation of the American abstract expressionists, whose work was being seen in Britain for the first time. He went on to live in Italy and London and important exhibitions at the ICA in 1966, and at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, the following year, were dominated by large sculptures made of perspex, fibreglass and highly polished chrome, which were well received by the critics.
Between 1967 and 1972, he held several positions as professor of fine art in the USA and when he returned to Britain in 1973 his reputation had faded. He established himself as a prolific and gifted printmaker, producing his own work and, through his Hope (Sufferance) Press, that of other artists.