SALISBURY — Bill Binzen, 92, who died Nov. 1, 2010, was a “man of parts†(as he might have put it), whose varied and interesting life experiences — from prep school student to cowboy, from pilot to children’s book author — combined with a whimsical approach to life and friendly manner made him entertaining company. More than anything else, though, he was an artist — photographer, sketcher, painter, sculptor — whose creative and discerning eye made art out of found objects, twigs in snow, “sandwichingâ€photographs (long before Photoshop was invented), or the perfectly balanced framing of a scene in nature.
F. William Binzen was born on Sept. 21, 1918, in Montclair, N.J., to Lucy (Husted) and Frederick William Binzen. Bill was the eldest of three sons who were all the greatest of friends.
Their childhoods were full of sports and games with their neighborhood pals, and happy summers spent often in the Lakeville area.
After graduating from The Choate School (where he held the record for the high jump, in part thanks to his tall lanky frame, and was co-captain of the track team), Bill attended the University of Virginia for one year, and then studied art at the University of Arizona for a while.
He was working as a tour guide at Radio City Music Hall in New York City (happily returning the greetings of the ever-gracious performer Dinah Shore) when, on break one day in the teletype room, the news came over the wires that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.
Bill’s initial attempts to enlist were thwarted by his always slender build; he didn’t weigh enough to qualify for the Army Air Corps. To put on some pounds, he headed west to Jackson Hole, Wyo., where he worked as a cowhand at the Triangle X Ranch for nine months.
He managed to put on enough weight to qualify for the Army Air Corps, where he became a B17 bomber pilot in the 15th Air Force, was stationed in Italy, and flew 26 bombing missions over Germany, Austria and Yugoslavia.
Back in New York after the war, Bill studied at the Art Students League, a formative experience he always remembered fondly. He soon embarked on two careers at which he excelled: father, when his son William was born, and art director, when he started working in advertising.
For most of the 1950s, he worked at Ogilvy Benson & Mather for the legendary David Ogilvy, and handled such accounts as Schweppes, Hathaway and the government of Puerto Rico. He enjoyed the creative aspects of the job and the camaraderie (including getting to know advertising copywriter Gaile Longden, whom he married in 1959), but the job began to hold less fascination for him, and his artistic pursuits more, so in 1959 he and his new wife went to live in Florence, Italy, for a sabbatical year.
He returned to Ogilvy, and then in 1962 began his true career as a freelance photographer.
Over the years, he worked for a variety of magazines — Life, McCall’s, Esquire, Psychology Today (where he often employed his technique of “sandwichingâ€two transparencies to get an interesting effect), Time, Holiday, Fortune, The New York Times Magazine, and Parents — for the latter, often pressing his growing family (daughter Susanna and sons Timothy and Nathaniel) into action modeling for assignments.
The family lived during the 1960s on 10th Street in New York’s East Village. The neighborhood abounded with interesting material for photos.
Some of this material was turned into two books for children and one (“Tenth Streetâ€) for adults.
In 1970 Bill and his family moved to Salisbury. Bill traveled frequently to New York for assignments, but this was more than balanced by the pleasure of living in the beautiful Berkshires, which became both subject of and backdrop to many wonderful photographs and books. Altogether, he wrote and illustrated with his photographs 11 children’s books and three books for adults. Creating books gave him more satisfaction than anything else.
Of all his children’s books, the most beloved may well be “Alfred the Little Bear†and its two sequels; he often received letters from adults and children who loved Alfred.
Bill never retired from photography; even when he was no longer doing assignments, he worked with his vast catalogue of photos on new projects, and even managed a (limited) mastery of the computer and digital camera. He was working on assembling a collection of his best works when he died.
Bill was inspired continually by the people and landscapes of his beloved Northwest Corner.He served on the Democratic Town Committee, the Salisbury Association Historical Society (where he was very involved in putting together the World War II exhibit several years ago), and the Board of Christian Action of the Salisbury Congregational Church.
Even greater than his art, perhaps, was his warm personality and ever-present sense of humor. He never lost the love of games, competition and gentle teasing he’d had since childhood. His distinctive tall, lanky figure, twinkling eyes and loud guffaw are greatly missed by his wife, Gaile; his children, William, Susanna, Timothy and Nathaniel; his six granddaughters, Naomi, Molly, Tessa, Mira, Thea and Xenia; his daughters-in-law, Nancy Binzen, Bethanie Hooker and Jennifer Sipple; his son-in-law, David Guthrie; his beloved brother Peter; and his nieces and nephews and their families.
A memorial service will be held for Bill at the Salisbury Congregational Church on Saturday, Nov. 13 at 11 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Salisbury Association Land Trust (salisburyassn.org/land-trust); the Salisbury Visiting Nurse Association (salisburyvna.org); or Lucy’s Love Bus, an organization founded by a family friend in honor of her daughter, which seeks to deliver comfort to children undergoing cancer treatment (lucyslovebus.org).
Visit billbinzen.com to see Bill’s photographs, read a longer life history and leave a comment.
