Bénédicte Pesle

Bénédicte Pesle (15 May 1927 – 17 January 2018) was a French arts patron. She was known for having introduced American avant-garde artists of stage, music, dance, and the visual arts to France, and was instrumental in the European careers Merce Cunningham, Robert Wilson, Philip Glass, and Trisha Brown, amongst others.

In the announcement of her Ordre des Arts et des Lettres award, she was listed as an "agent artistique" (artistic agent), but in the course of her career, carried out largely behind the scenes, she was also sometimes described as a "producer" or "presenter". A 1985 article about her in the Christian Science Monitor, described her less formally as "a combination of friend, agent, impresario, producer, fund-raiser, and creative adviser." She herself preferred the term "secrétaire d’artistes" (secretary to artists) to describe her work.