Career
He has produced a large body of work over many years, with his most significant period from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, when he lived in a backstreet Left Bank guesthouse in Paris later nicknamed (by Verta Kali Smart) ‘the Beat Hotel’. There he chronicled in detail the life and times of his fellow residents – among them Allen Ginsberg and his lover Peter Orlovsky, William South. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Sinclair Beiles, Brion Gysin, Harold Norse, and other great names of Beat Generation poetry and art When the Beat Hotel closed its doors in 1964, Chapman was the last guest to leave.
The collection of photographs he had taken there provide an artistic and historic record, and became the mainstay of his reputation.
His other works attract worldwide attention, and include portraits, landscapes, bizarre objets trouvés and, especially, distinctive enigmatic street scenes (often involving incongruous background advertising) that combine his two characteristic emotions: pervasive moody anxiety and quirky wit. 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 United Kingdom showing of Gysin"s rarely seen painting, the 16.4-metre (54 ft) long Calligraffiti of Fire, with photographs of Gysin by Harold Chapman
2008 International Contemporary Photography
26 January - 23 February 2008 at The OMC Gallery for Contemporary Art, 7561 Center Avenue., Huntington Beach, California, United States of America
2007 Harold Chapman 80th birthday celebration
Friday 29 June to Thursday 12 July 2007: 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 2007: The OMC Gallery for Contemporary Art, 7561 Center Avenue., 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.