Harry Benson was born in Glasgow, United Kingdom in 1929 and he has had a remarkable career as a photojournalist. At the age of thirteen, he left school and began working for the local newspaper, the Hamilton Advertiser. In 1958 he began working for the Daily Sketch and the Daily Express. It was in 1964 that Benson came to America with The Beatles. Benson’s work has been in the most influential magazines and newspapers of the twentieth century. He has photographed and documented many key figures and moments in history, such as the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Junior’s funeral.
He has had 40 gallery solo exhibitions and fourteen books of his photographs have been published. 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.