Harold Chapman

Visual Artist

1927 –

14

Who is Harold Chapman?

Harold Stephen Chapman is a photographer noted for chronicling the 1950s in Paris.

He has produced a large body of work over many years, with his most significant period from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, when he lived in a backstreet Left Bank guesthouse in Paris later nicknamed ‘the Beat Hotel’. There he chronicled in detail the life and times of his fellow residentsamong them Allen Ginsberg and his lover Peter Orlovsky, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Sinclair Beiles, Brion Gysin, Harold Norse, and other great names of Beat Generation poetry and art. When the Beat Hotel closed its doors in 1964, Chapman was the last guest to leave. The collection of photographs he had taken there provide an artistic and historic record, and became the mainstay of his reputation.

His other works attract worldwide attention, and include portraits, landscapes, bizarre objets trouvés and, especially, distinctive enigmatic street scenes that combine his two characteristic emotions: pervasive moody anxiety and quirky wit.

We need you!

Help us build the largest biographies collection on the web!

Born
Mar 26, 1927
Kent
Profession

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

Citation

Use the citation below to add to a bibliography:

Style:MLAChicagoAPA

"Harold Chapman." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/harold_chapman>.

Discuss this Harold Chapman biography with the community:

0 Comments

    Browse Biographies.net