Beny began photographing in the 1950s simply as a way to capture scenes for his paintings before growing more interested in the medium.

Beny had a considerable reputation and exhibition record as the maker of progressive painting, drawing and printmaking in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

[3] Canada, as Beny remarked, had "no temples two thousand years old, no paths worn hard by passionate travelers.

The circle of friends around him—actors, artists, collectors, writers—included Laurence Olivier, Stephen Spender, Rose Macaulay, Bernard Berenson, Jean Cocteau, Henry Moore, and other makers of art and literature.

His books have been published in America, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iran, and Japan.

[6] Roloff Beny died March 16, 1984, of a heart attack, aged 60, in his Roman studio overlooking the Tiber.