Logo

13 Facts About Margaret Benyon

1.

Margaret Benyon was appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 2000 for her service to art and has been called "the mother of British holography".

2.

Margaret Benyon was born in Birmingham, England in 1940 and grew up in Kenya, where she attended The Kenya High School.

3.

Margaret Benyon studied painting at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, graduating in 1962.

4.

Margaret Benyon employed techniques including "optical illusions, colour and so on", particularly the moire pattern, "to modulate the picture plane so that it no longer looked flat".

5.

Margaret Benyon created anaglyph paintings, which appeared three dimensional when viewed through special glasses with differently coloured lenses.

6.

Margaret Benyon was given after-hours use of a laboratory in the university's mechanical engineering department, where she made her first holograms.

7.

Margaret Benyon made the holograms for the show in a laboratory of the British Aircraft Corporation in Bristol, England.

8.

Margaret Benyon later made use of the facilities at the National Physical Laboratory.

9.

In February and March 1970 Margaret Benyon had a solo show at the Lisson Gallery in London.

10.

Margaret Benyon spent the period between 1976 and 1981 in Australia.

11.

Margaret Benyon taught at the Canberra School of Art and held a creative arts fellowship at the Australian National University in Canberra.

12.

Margaret Benyon was appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 2000 "for services to art".

13.

Margaret Benyon continued to practice as an artist, while teaching at the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.