Ryszard Horowitz

Ryszard Horowitz

1939-

ABOUT

Ryszard Horowitz’s award-winning photographs, synthesize art, film-making and design, producing extraordinary and celebrated imagery. Ryszard is considered a pioneer in multi-image special effects photography that predates digital imaging. Most of his work is photocomposed and while it is now assembled digitally, his early compositions were all merged in the dark room, or were based on a single exposure directly in camera. His early fame was established by creating an entire body of work based on an optical illusion reversing perspective the way single eye camera sees it. Ryszard Horowitz was born in Krakow, Poland and as an infant during World War II he and his family were interned in a series of concentration camps. They miraculously survived the war and became amongst the few Jewish families who were able to re-establish their lives in Krakow. Horowitz is one of the youngest known survivors of Auschwitz. In the late 1950s, as Krakow became the centre of avant-garde arts, and culture, Horowitz documented the birth of Polish jazz and then moving to the United States in 1959 went on photographing American Jazz legends. He became fascinated with American photography and photography would become his lifelong career and passion. He graduated from Pratt Institute in New York, opening his own photography studio in 1967. In the ensuing five decades 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 for some of his ground-breaking work, as well as a number of honorary Doctorate degrees.

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Photo Credit: Wojtal

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