The ''Benezit Dictionary of Artists'' (in French, ''Bénézit: Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs'') is an extensive publication of bibliographical information on

painters Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

sculptors Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

designers A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exper ...

and engravers created primarily for art museums, auction houses, historians and dealers. It was published by Éditions Gründ in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

but has been sold to

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. First published in the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...

in three volumes between 1911 and 1923, the

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...

was put together by Emmanuel Bénézit (1854–1920) and a team of international specialists with assistance from his son the painter Emmanuel-Charles Bénézit (1887–1975), and daughter Marguerite Bénézit. After the elder Bénézit's death the editors were (1895–1994) and the painter (1922–2004), the younger Bénézit having already left Paris and moved to Provence. The next edition was an eight-volume set published between 1948 and 1955, followed by a ten-volume set in 1976 and a 14-volume set in 1999. In 2006, an English-language edition was published for the first time. A 14-volume set, it has more than 20,000 pages, with over 170,000 entries. As of 2024, the editor-in-chief is Valerie Cassel Oliver (from 2020). Since the move to Oxford University Press, advisory editors and editors-in-chief have been Stephen J. Bury (2011–14) and Kathy Battista (2015–2019).

Online biographies

Since 2011, for a fee, the content of the ''Benezit'' can be accessed online at

Oxford Art Online Oxford Art Online is an Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press ...

.Oxford Art Online
Free access is available for members of some UK public libraries.

Editions

French

* (14 volumes) * (14 volumes) * (10 volumes)

English

* (14 volumes) * (14 volumes) *''The Benezit Dictionary of British Graphic Artists and Illustrators'' (Oxford University Press, 2012, two volumes)

Notes and references

External links

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Table of contents
Art and architecture dictionaries Art history books Biographies about artists Benezit Oxford University Press reference books {{art-bio-book-stub