Friday 12 August – Saturday 3 December 2016 (closed Sundays) Free entry
Muhammad Ali and the Beatles, Miami, 1964 © Harry Benson
Glasgow-born photographer Harry Benson arrived in America with the Beatles in 1964. This exhibition explores Benson’s fascination with the political and historical events that unfolded in America in the 1960s and 1970s and the ensuing development of his career, especially as a renowned portrait photographer.
Benson was one of the few press to go on the March Against Fear demonstration with James Meredith encouraging African Americans to register to vote. His photographs capturing Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination and final moments in June 1968 shocked the world while documenting a terrible loss.
President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan, The White House, 1985 © Harry Benson
Benson has photographed every American president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barack Obama, often showing Presidents and First Ladies in a playful light as well as capturing the pressures of a life in office. Benson photographed Richard Nixon’s resignation speech and the journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward who led on the reporting of the Watergate scandal.
Other portraits on display will showcase wider American life and culture.