Harold Stephen Chapman (born 26 March 1927 in Deal) is a photographer noted for chronicalling the 1950s in Paris.

He has produced a large body of work over many years, but his most significant period was from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when he lived in a backstreet Left Bank guesthouse in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 later nicknamed (by Verta Kali Smart) ‘the Beat Hotel

Beat Hotel

The Beat Hotel was a small, run-down hotel of 42 rooms at 9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur in the Latin Quarter of Paris, notable chiefly as a residence for members of the Beat poetry movement of the mid-20th century -Overview:...

’. There he chronicled in detail the life and times of his fellow residents – among them Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...

 and his lover Peter Orlovsky

Peter Orlovsky

Peter Anton Orlovsky was an American poet.-Life and work:Orlovsky was born in the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of Katherine and Oleg Orlovsky, a Russian immigrant. He was raised in poverty and was forced to drop out of Newtown High School in his senior year so he could support his...

, William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

, Gregory Corso

Gregory Corso

Gregory Nunzio Corso was an American poet, youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers...

, Sinclair Beiles

Sinclair Beiles

Sinclair Beiles - was a South African beat poet and editor for Maurice Girodias at the Olympia Press in Paris. He developed along with William S...

, Brion Gysin

Brion Gysin

Brion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, used by his friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs...

, Harold Norse

Harold Norse

Harold Norse was an American writer who created a body of work using the American idiom of everyday language and images. One of the expatriate artists of the Beat generation, Norse was widely published and anthologized.- Life :Born Harold Rosen to an unmarried Lithuanian Jewish immigrant in Brooklyn...

, and other great names of Beat Generation

Beat generation

The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...

 poetry and art. When the Beat Hotel

Beat Hotel

The Beat Hotel was a small, run-down hotel of 42 rooms at 9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur in the Latin Quarter of Paris, notable chiefly as a residence for members of the Beat poetry movement of the mid-20th century -Overview:...

finally closed its doors in 1963, Chapman was the last guest to leave. The extraordinary collection of photographs he had taken there were to become the mainstay of his reputation, a unique record both artistic and historic.

Yet increasingly his other work attracts worldwide attention, and could yet prove a greater legacy. Portraits, landscapes, bizarre objets trouvés and, especially, distinctive enigmatic street scenes (often involving incongruous background advertising), combine his two characteristic emotions – pervasive moody anxiety and quirky wit.

Recent exhibitions

2008-2009 Brion Gysin : Calligraffiti of Fire

11 December 2008 – 7 February 2009 at The October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester Street, Bloomsbury, London, England.
Featuring the first UK showing of Gysin's rarely-seen painting, the 16.4-metre-long Calligraffiti of Fire, with photographs of Gysin by Harold Chapman.

2008 International Contemporary Photography

Jan 26 - Feb 23,2008, at: The OMC Gallery for Contemporary Art, 7561 Center Ave., Huntington Beach, California, USA.

2007 Harold Chapman 80th birthday celebration

Friday 29 June to Thursday 12 July: The Royal Hotel, Deal.
This exhibition in Chapman's home town showed some of his most famous works.

2007 Harold Chapman – Photographer: A Retrospective 1947-2007

23 March-24 April: The OMC Gallery for Contemporary Art, 7561 Center Ave., Huntington Beach, California.

2007/2008 Harold Chapman at 80 - An online retrospective

A Gallery exhibition of Chapman's work for the Top Foto agency, at Harold Chapman Gallery

Books

Beats à Paris (Michael Kellner,Hamburg and OMC Communication GmbH, Düsseldorf 2001) – by Harold Chapman

The Beat Hotel (Editeur banal gris, 1984) – by Harold Chapman, foreword by William Burroughs, foreword by Brion Gysin.

Everyman’s France (J.M.Dent, 1982) – by Maxine Feifer (Author), Harold Chapman (Photographer)

Vanishing France (Quadrangle, New York, 1975) – John Hess, Harold Chapman.

External links

• www.topfoto.co.uk - Top Foto, agency with over 3000 Chapman pictures.
• www.omc-llc.com - OMC Gallery, exhibitors of Chapman's work in Germany and USA.
• www.thebestofdealandsandwich.co.uk - Chapman’s recent pictures of Deal, Kent.
• www.theimageworks.com - US agency for Chapman photos
• Biography article in The Guardian