Brio CZ - Benezit

Since 1911, the Benezit has been the unrivaled, indispensable work of reference for art historians, dealers, collectors and students. Benezit provides both the amateur and the professional with important factual information about almost any painter, sculptor, engraver or draghtsman of all countries and schools, from Antiquity to the present day. From the 1920s until the present, a team of specialists has been working on it full-time, adding thousands of entries with each of its five editions.

The first English edition of Benezit was published in March 2006. This is the largest edition ever—over 170,000 entries, comprising over 20,000 pages in 14 volumes.

Since the last publication of the work in 1999, a team of 150 editors, art historians and translators, has been working to complete the monumental 2006 edition. Older entries have been updated and expanded, and new entries have been added, bringing thousands of changes to this new edition. Features include biographical entries on artists, museums and galleries where the works of an artist can be found, graphics (including artist signatures, monograms and stamps of sale), auction records, and bibliographies of written works on the artist.

All these combine to make the 2006 Benezit Dictionary of Artists even more compelling and useful to a wider audience than ever before.

In 1911, the Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays was published in three volumes. Though its importance to the art world was immediately recognized, the work proved to be daunting for the original publisher. In the early 1920s, the Librairie Gründ took up the task. This first edition under the Gründ imprimatur was compiled by a group of specialist writers from France and elsewhere guided by Emmanuel Bénézit. The influence of Benezit gave readers easy access, through its alphabetized classification, and the most important facts about an artist including personal details, dates, nationality, biography and values of oeuvres.

Between 1948 and 1955, the subsequent eight volumes, added many more listings and also added bibliographies, museum listings and prices of works sold at public auction. The 10-volume Benezit which appeared in 1976, was a result of a major revision, and established the work as the premier dictionary of its kind for the art world.

The advent of computer technology further enabled the Benezit team to push the Dictionary to higher editorial standards. The result was a new, 14-volume edition in 1999 that included literally thousands of new and updated entries, adding information from new discoveries, and improved accuracy in classifying information. Hundreds of thousands of new documents were used as source material, from specialist encyclopedia, to obscure newspaper articles and items, to exhibition catalogs, art reviews and auction house catalogs from all over the world.

In Spring 2000, a survey was conducted among art professionals to determine the Benezit's existing market, assess its goals and identify possible competitors in order to establish a viable course for future development.

Art dealers, auctioneers, curators and scholars from France, Germany, Great Britain and the United States were contacted. Both existing and potential users of the Benezit were represented.

The survey confirmed the dictionary's excellent international reputation as an indispensable work of reference. It also exposed a number of weaknesses, namely that growth potential on the international market was not fully exploited. The language barrier was identified as the key factor behind this halted growth. Alongside requests for more regular updating and an online or CD-rom version, the need for an English-language translation came out at the top of the list of priorities. Furthermore, the book form remains popular among most professionals.

The need for a more accessible Benezit was evident, and an English-language edition seemed all the more necessary given the current climate of the international art market: as the market expands and diversifies, it seems natural that such an unrivalled work of reference should be available to a greater readership.

At the end of 2000, the feasibility of an English-language translation of the Benezit was assessed. A number of tests were carried out in order to establish both the method and the technology required. The enormity of the task at hand soon became apparent: a large team of specialist translators, editors and art historians needed to work together, in the shortest possible period of time, to produce an English-language version of an extremely wealthy and complex database which was being updated on a daily basis by the French team. Such a task required a well-adapted team capable of tailoring the dictionary to the needs of the international market (for example by creating a number of new and updated entries on British and American artists).

The preliminary stages of the project involved database development and creation of adapted translation software, legal advice, editorial expertise and thorough process analysis on a representative sample of the dictionary.

After some months of assessment, the entire project was entrusted to Cambridge Publishing Management. CPM has over seven years’ experience in providing a complete editorial and book production service to publishers. CPM has pulled off an amazing feat – not only in finding and keeping such a large team going but also in managing a project of this complexity to budget and on time.

“This authoritative and useful volume is the standard biographical listing of artists, outdoing similar ressources in both size and scope. As such, it belongs in all major American libraries.”
– Library Journal, Jun '06 (*Starred Review)

“The major advantage of Benezit over artist indexes … is that it provides more detailed biographical data. … And yes, Benezit often has the most comprehensive listing on an artist available anywhere, especially more obscure names. It also lists many artists who are not found in artist indexes or price guides.”
– Artbusiness.com, May '06

“An extraordinary achievement.”
– ARTnews, Sum '06

“A team of 150 editors, art historians, and translators updated old entries and added new ones, thus continuing the monumental ongoing effort that makes this reference of inestimable value to anyone seeking information about artists from antiquity to the present.”
– Reference & Research Book News, Nov '06