Bénézit (artist dictionary)
The Bénézit is an originally French artist lexicon .
The art dealer Emmanuel Bénézit (1854–1920) founded the French-language artist lexicon Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays in 1911, inspired by Thieme-Becker . The first volume appeared in 1911. The encyclopedia covers painters, sculptors, draftsmen and engravers from all countries and ages. The Swiss painter Edmond-Henri Zeiger-Viallet (1895–1994) was one of Bénézit's employees . Two volumes were published during Bénézit's lifetime. After his death in 1920, Marcelle Bénézit and Zeiger-Viallet completed the third volume (1923).
Under the name Bénézit , the work became the standard work, especially in French-speaking countries. It received three further French-language editions, each of which became more extensive. However, the articles are much shorter and less scientific than those in Thieme-Becker . The Dictionnaire Bénézit was reprinted and expanded several times, all editions were published by the Gründ publishing house in Paris.
- First edition (1911–1923), 3 volumes
- Second edition (1948–1955), 8 volumes
- Third edition (1976), 10 volumes
- Fourth edition (1999), 14 volumes
- Fifth edition of Dictionary of Artists (2006), 14 volumes, in English with over 170,000 entries on around 20,000 pages.
The Bénézit will be maintained as an Internet database by Oxford University Press at oxfordartonline.com .