Center for Creative Photography Gifted Benn Mitchell’s Archive

The widow of Benn Mitchell, a photographer who offered his first image to Life journal on the age of 16 and went on to shoot in areas together with New York and Hollywood within the Forties and ’50s, gifted his archive in addition to $1 million to the Center for Creative Photography at Arizona University. The funding is designated for the Center’s assortment, which incorporates some 110,000 works by greater than 2,200 photographers.  

In a press release saying the reward, Esther Mitchell stated, “When I started looking for the right home for Benn’s work, I learned about the Center for Creative Photography and the strong reputation they have for preserving archives. They don’t just store photographs. They study them, teach with them and share them with the public. That combination really made me feel it was the right place.”

Benn Mitchell began capturing photos at 16 and, a 12 months later, moved from New York to Los Angeles, the place he photographed film stars together with Humphrey Bogart and Gene Autry. In the ‘50s he began a industrial studio in New York, the place he continued capturing all method of cultural life whereas additionally working in promoting and inventory images. He died in 2021 in Boca Raton, Florida, the place a survey of his work was introduced on the Boca Raton Museum of Art in 2023.

Below, see a choice of highlights of images by Benn Mitchell within the assortment of the Center for Creative Photography.