Benjamin Péret (4 July 1899 – 18 September 1959) was a French poet, Parisian Dadaist and a founder and central member of the French Surrealist movement[1][2] with his avid use of Surrealist automatism.
Benjamin Péret was born in Rezé, France on 4 July 1899.[3] He, as a child, acquired little education due to his dislike of school and he instead attended the Local Art School from 1912. He too, however, resigned soon after in 1913 due to his sheer lack of study and willingness to do so. Afterwards he spent a short period of time in a School of Industrial Design before enlisting in the French army’s Cuirassiers during the First World War to avoid being jailed for defacing a local statue with paint. He saw action in the Balkans before being deployed to Salonica, Greece.