Post date: 09-Oct-2020 18:49:32

The Vaughns & Benvenistes were a family, only some of whom went to the Witches, but who were all wrapped up both in my early social life and family life.

For me the most prominent of this brood was Paul Vaughn who with his mate Vaughn O'Leary might well have introduced me to the Witches. I can't remember now - but I certainly went to parties with Paul in 1959/1960 when I had just turned 15. A little bit older than me, Paul was a lot of fun, a dedicated party goer as well as a serious student at Hornsey School of Art. He was a close friend in the very late 50s and early 60s. He gave me a blank hardback book with a dark red cover in which I kept a diary including the first week or two of 1960 and some intermittant entries later in the 60s. I plan to publish some of it later on this site, and it has accounts of parties I (& and my parents) attended at the start of 1960 at the Benveniste's flat in Greencroft Gardens, just downhill from Finchley Road Tube Station.

Elsewhere on this site I tell the story of how Paul and Vaughn took me to a party in Chelsea at which I got very drunk and sick. It was with Paul and Roger with whom I first smoked dope. (Roger had brought it back from the Beat Hotel in Paris Summer 1960). They chased me, screaming with fear and laughter, up and down Greencroft Gardens holding an imaginary spider. It was Paul at Hornsey College of Art who printed 50 or 100 invitations to a party which I had told him about (and to which I was invited but he was not) in The Bishops Avenue, London N2. This led to scores if not 100s of people milling about in the road outside failing to gain entry. The Bishops Avenue connects with the north side of Hampstead Heath at Kenwood and was called 'Millionaires' Row' in the day, although according to Wikipedia it is now referred to by its nickname of 'Billionaires' Row'. By the late 60s Paul met and married a beautiful Tunisian woman and moved to Tunis where he was a very successful designer.

He played a big role in the productions of Trigram Press with Asa Benveniste.

This is the only picture I know of Paul Vaughn, thanks to

Ruth Hilton for sending it. This is what he looked like, in the early 1960s.

Paul had two brothers, Jasper and Mark

Jasper Vaughn, the eldest of the three brothers

Mark Vaughn, the youngest; thanks to Ruth again. Mark was Ruth's first serious boyfriend and he features in one of the photos on her page on this site.

Mark Vaughn

Jasper and Mark were not so much part of our scene although they and their rooms figure in my 1960 diary accounts of parties at their parent's flat.

Mark's (& Paul & Jasper's) mother was Pip Benveniste, the painter

Pip Benveniste in 1982, Photograph Paul Vaughan

A younger Pip in the garden

Pip Benveniste by Tony Ward

Painting by Pip Benveniste

Cherry Orchard by Pip Benveniste

Asa Benveniste by Pip Benveniste

Pip's second husband was Asa Benveniste (1925-1990)

the poet and small press printer and proprieter of Trigram Books, stepfather to the three Vaughn boys

Asa Benveniste in New York

Asa Benveniste in New York

An older Asa Benveniste in his secondhand bookshop 'Imprint' in Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire where he lived out his days with his second wife Agneta Falk. .

Asa Benveniste at the tomb of Sylvia Plath. He was buried nearby himself, in St Thomas' Churchyard in Heptonstall, Yorkshire.

Asa Beneveniste - Poems of the Mouth, with cover illustration by Pip Beneveniste (wrapped in tracing paper dust jacket)

After World War II Benveniste lived in Paris and co-founded the Zero Press with the first publication in spring 1949 Zero Magazine. Following the second issue of Zero, which featured work by Paul Bowles, James Baldwin and Matta, Benveniste moved to London, then later Cornwall and Kent where he wrote a full length radio play "Tangier for the Traveller" for the BBC Home Service.

Besides being a poet, he also worked as a printer, a typographer, and as a book designer. In London during 1965, he co-founded and managed the pioneering Trigram Press. The artist Pip (Penelope) Benveniste, Asa's first wife, was also his partner in the Trigram Press project and provided the funds for its establishment. Pip's middle son (and Asa's stepson) Paul Vaughan was the highly skilled printer at Trigram Press, operating the classic Gutenberg Printing Press to a very high standard and developing groundbreaking results with silkscreen images for books, limited edition prints and other outlets.

Poems by Asa Benveniste

Free Semantic number 2 by Asa Benveniste, 1968

Colour Theory by Asa Benveniste 1977

Asa may have met my parents John & Elna Ernest when we lived in France 1949-1951, because they also knew James Baldwin and Christopher Logue in Paris. Or they may have met them in the artisitic milieu of Hampstead and the West End in the 1950s, after moving to London in 1951.

It was through my parents friendship with Pip & Asa Benveniste that I got to know them and their sons, most notably Paul. Asa turned my father Ernie (John Ernest) onto peyote and he described the most amazing visions to us (my sister Susan and I).

Pip & Asa Benveniste always treated me with respect and the seriousness one shows to an equal. I recall them casting my prospects with yarrow stalks, and reading my hexagram from the Yi Ching.

Ruth Hilton, on the other hand, who was Mark Vaughn's girlfriend in the early 1960s, always felt they looked down on her, perhaps as representative of the middle-class and bourgeoisie, and not part of the avante garde art scene

I last saw Pip and Paul Vaughn in her house in Camden Square late 60s or ealy 70s when my mother Elna and I were invited to dinner.

By a coincidence, Elna's partner for some years after her marriage broke up was John Latimer Smith, himself a small press proprieter (Latimer Press) which he ran from our cellar in Inglewood Road for a while. He kept in touch with Asa after his marriage to Pip had dissolved, and visited him in Hebden Bridge.

Elna purchased and I inherited two of Pip's rather fine paintings that I still have hanging on the wall.

To the best of my knowledge Pip's three sons are still alive, certainly Mark Vaughn with whom I had the briefest correspondence about this site, earlier this year (2020). Mark helped set up the use of Pip's painting designs in rugs and many are available, such as this calligraphy inspired rug. See https://landrugs.com/pip-benveniste

Mark wrote a piece about the life and work of his mother:

https://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2734-natures-signature.html

Pip Benveniste, untitled calligraphy inspired rug

I discovered the following online in 2021 (From the Jewish Chronicle of MONDAY 19 APRIL 2021)

An ‘icon of modern art’ goes on sale