American photogpraher Benn Mitchell wearing a sandwich board in London. COURTESY PHOTO
Photographers live by an extreme version of carpe diem; it’s a second that they look to seize. The good ones can read the tea leaves and sense that moment before it arrives.
For 17-year-old Benn Mitchell, it is the moment a squinting Humphrey Bogart in a pinstripe suit holds a cigarette between his puckered lips, half of his face in shadows, that is worth printing.
Mitchell picked this instant over the climactic moments of ignition and exhale.
Every actor has a mechanism to shed a character they have been playing. In between takes, Bogie decompressed with a cigarette. We know this because Mitchell’s camera snapped the classy star taking a smoke break with the poise that so characterized him. Expression, body language, attire and that glorious jawline achieve perfect harmony in that second. It might as well have been in the script.
This sensual image from 1943 is among 52 timeless photographs featured in “Benn Mitchell Photographs: Hollywood to NYC,” through Oct. 22 at Boca Raton Museum of Art. The exhibition focuses on two bodies of work in the esteemed American photographer’s career: Warner Brothers photographs from 1943 and New York City scenes from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. Judging by the selection, success was a given, but nobody could have predicted it would be early on.
Bogie and Marilyn greet visitors to the second-floor gallery housing photographs by American photographer Benn Mitchell. GRETEL SARMIENTO / FLORIDA WEEKLY
The second-floor gallery houses images of cafeterias, trains, storefront windows, movie theaters, and umbrella holding pedestrians battling weather conditions. There’s the obligatory print of the Empire State Building, which stands tall and powerful against a cloudy sky. Also here standing grand is the lion sculpture outside the iconic New York Public Library; its commanding quality courtesy of a low angle shot. Then there’s the curious inclusion of a gelatin silver print from 1950 portraying three men walking arm in arm. We can count at least three indiscreet onlookers who follow them as the men approach a theater playing “Suddenly Last Summer,” starring Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.
The New York City native, who became an avid supporter of the museum upon retiring to Boca Raton until his death in 2021, sold his first photograph to LIFE magazine while still a teenager. Included in the show is a 1943 letter from the magazine advising Mitchell a $25 check for his Chilly Billy photograph — featured in the Jan. 25 issue — is on the way. It, too, anticipates the success that was to come.
“I’ll be looking forward with you to getting some of your pictures in soon again,” ends the letter signed by Ruth Lester.
An eager young Mitchell next headed to Hollywood having been granted permission by Warner Brothers to linger around its studios and document movie stars, extras and behind-the-scenes professionals.
An unidentified actor dressed as a cowboy points a pistol at someone kept out of the frame in one print acquired by the museum this year. His character enjoys being in control and takes his time issuing what we presume to be a warning. Images like this one tempt the dormant voiceover artist in us. A plausible dialogue for this scene could go: “Eeeeeeasy there, cowboy. Is that a threat?” At which time the guy with the pistol says: “No, that’s a promise.”
The museum has not been able to properly identify subjects and movie sets such as this one. Anyone with information is encouraged to get in touch. Until then, feel free to fill in the blanks.
Early in the show, photographer turns subject and human billboard in one black-and-white image depicting a smirking Mitchell sporting a sandwich board. The story goes that while on assignment in London, Mitchell spotted a man on Oxford Street advertising: “Express passports and high-class portraiture.” He offered money to the man to borrow the board and had his wife, Esther, take this amusing photo.
If the above examples don’t entice you to spend a few minutes with “Benn Mitchell Photographs,” consider visiting anyway; if only to witness what bold young minds can achieve and why we shouldn’t rush to dismiss them.
Following his time at Warner Brothers studios and a two-year service as a U.S. Navy photographer, Mitchell returned to New York City and studied at Columbia University. He went on to open his own commercial studio at 25, eight years after that $25 check from LIFE magazine.
