Ryszard Horowitz

Ryszard Horowitz was born in Krakow, Poland on May 5th 1939. Four months later the Nazis invaded his homeland and soon after his entire family was sent to a series of concentration camps. They miraculously survived thanks to Oskar Schindler and at the war's end were amongst the few Jewish families who re-established their lives in Krakow. Ryszard is known to be one of the youngest known survivors of Auschwitz.

Ryszard studied art at the High School of Fine Arts in Krakow and then went on to major in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in his home city. In 1956 during a brief political and cultural thaw in Poland the government awarded subsidies to encourage new and original art forms and Krakow suddenly emerged as a center of avant-garde jazz, painting, theater and filmmaking. Ryszard, who was seventeen at the time, immersed himself in this new cultural environment, documenting the birth of Polish jazz and becoming fascinated with American photography.

He moved to the United States in 1959, where he enrolled at New York's famed Pratt Institute. While still a student at Pratt he was given a scholarship to be an apprentice to Alexey Brodovitch, one of the most influential figures in the world of editorial design and photography at the time. After graduating from Pratt in 1963, Ryszard begun to work as a graphic designer for a number of film and design companies and as an art director for Grey Advertising. He opened his own photography studio in 1967 and photography would become his lifelong career and passion.

His work has been exhibited, published and collected around the globe and Ryszard has been awarded every major accolade that can be bestowed on a photographer. He was named All American Photographer of the Year and received several Gold Medals from the Art Directors Club of New York for some of his ground-breaking work, as well as a number of Doctor Honoris causa degrees. He is recognized as a pioneer of special effects photography predating digital imaging. In 2017 he was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame.

source:https://ryszardhorowitz.com/biography.html
In the photo: Ryszard Horowitz, photo: Marta Wojtal