Roger Benjamin

Roger Benjamin is an art historian and curator who teaches at the University of Sydney. He has published widely on Orientalist painting, Henri Matisse, and contemporary Australian art. His book Kandinsky and Klee in Tunisia, with Cristina Ashjian, was published by the University of California Press in 2015. His latest book is Growing up Modern: Canberra's Round House and Alex Jelinek (Halstead Press 2023).

'Kandinsky: Vasily Kandinsky from the Guggenheim' by Roger Benjamin

ABR Arts • 20 November 2023

We can all be grateful for Kandinsky, this summer’s main exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It is a strong and balanced show by the most influential among the early practitioners of modern abstract art. There are four main collections of Kandinsky’s work worldwide, but the best one belongs to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. It was formed from the late 1920s by Baro ... (read more)

'Rembrandt: True to Life: Etched with feeling' by Roger Benjamin

ABR Arts • 18 July 2023

Unlike his compatriot Jan Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn was never forgotten. Like a Beethoven of visual art, he has always been a beacon and has always inspired later artists. Famous for his biblical storytelling on a symphonic scale, he was also a supreme portraitist and master of the self-portrait in oils (he made more than forty). Public familiarity with Rembrandt’s oeuvre in the centuries befo ... (read more)