Ben Schonzeit

Ben Schonzeit was a pioneer in the 1960s SoHo art scene in Manhattan and became the youngest of the original thirteen Photorealist artists in the 1970s, a group that included artists such as Chuck Close and James Rosenquist. Born in Brooklyn in 1942, Schonzeit developed a love and talent for painting and composition from an early age. He attended Cooper Union in New York City, receiving superb artistic training. He originally studied architecture but switched to fine art, earning his BFA in 1964.

Schonzeit’s early work featured crisp, tightly rendered paintings based on photographs he took in downtown Manhattan. These images were foundational to his emergence as a leading figure in the Photorealism movement, which embraced the visual precision of photography and emphasized the photographic source as a central part of the painter’s process. Schonzeit distinguished himself by discovering aesthetic potential in everyday objects, translating them into large-scale paintings with a refined and poetic sensibility.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, Schonzeit moved away from strict photorealism, embracing imaginative and painterly setups that often included his own paintings as backdrops for still life photographs. He experimented with alternative photographic processes such as Cibachrome printing and explored the interplay between art history and contemporary visual culture. In one notable series, Schonzeit positioned floral arrangements before reproductions of works by Monet, Degas, and Watteau, creating layered dialogues between classical painting and modern still life.

In more recent years, Schonzeit has turned to collage, using cuttings from vintage periodicals to construct entirely new compositions—works that originate not from reference but from invention. These explorations of visual consciousness and perception have made a lasting impression, and his work has been acquired by numerous major institutions. His paintings and photographs are held in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, among others.

Ben Schonzeit continues to live and work in New York City, where he remains dedicated to creating new and compelling visual narratives.