Pip Benveniste
Pip in Hammamet, Tunisia, 1982 (photo by Paul Vaughan)
Painter, Photographer, Film-maker
June 5th. 1921, Newlyn – August 30th. 2010, Yeovil
Pip died peacefully on Monday. She was one of our oldest friends. A painter for sixty years, she was also central, with her then-husband Asa, to the lively small-press, poetry, visual arts and music scene in London through the 1960s. Films she made during those years were caught up with by the Tate and the BBC forty years later. She wrote an excellent memoir of her life up to 1940 titled The Pink House, apparently now out of print, but published by Avant Garde Editions in 2008, ISBN: 978-9973-0-0404-8.
September 2nd. Note from Rathna Ramanathan this morning:
I am reminded of a note Pip had on her kitchen noticeboard when I visited her in Dorset. It read: Old age is not for sissies. I remember her being spritely and full of life and energy – we discussed carpets, designs, posters, life, breathing well, and laughed a lot. It was such a delight, I can’t tell you.
