Benjamin Greenstein Benno

After the death of his mother in 1905, Benno spent his childhood in Russia until 1912, when he travelled to New York with his father. An anarchist, his father sent him to the Ferrer School, where Benno studied art with Robert Henri and George Bellows and mixed with Abraham Walkowitz, Man Ray, and other artists in the circle of modern art promoter Alfred Stieglitz. With the patronage of New York collectors, Benno went to Paris in 1926 and remained there until 1939. His Paris circle was equally exciting and encompassed Jacques Lipchitz, Marcel Duchamp, and Julio Gonzalez. Benno's work from the 1930s shows the influence of Picasso, Kandinsky, and Arp.