Ryszard Horowitz (born May 5, 1939) is a Polish-born

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in oth ...

recognized as a pioneer of

special effects Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wo ...

photography that predates

digital imaging Digital imaging or digital image acquisition is the creation of a digital representation of the visual characteristics of an object, such as a physical scene or the interior structure of an object. The term is often assumed to imply or include t ...

Early life

Horowitz was born in

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula, Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland un ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

on May 5, 1939. Four months later, because they were

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, Ryszard's entire family was forced into

concentration camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

following the

German invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week afte ...

. From September 1944, he was imprisoned at the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. I ...

and later became known as one of the youngest known people to survive Auschwitz and be included on

Schindler's list ''Schindler's List'' is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the 1982 novel ''Schindler's Ark'' by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The film f ...

. At war's end, five-year old Ryszard was found in an

orphanage An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or a ...

by his mother and reunited with his family. His was among the few

families to re-establish themselves in Krakow. Horowitz began taking pictures at the age of fourteen. For a brief period, he grew up alongside

Roman Polański Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a ( né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, tw ...

, with whom he created his first photographic

enlarger An enlarger is a specialized transparency projector used to produce photographic prints from film or glass negatives, or from transparencies. Construction All enlargers consist of a light source, normally an incandescent light bulb shining thoug ...

from cardboard.

Career

In 1956, the

Polish government The Government of Poland takes the form of a unitary parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the President is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the head of government. However, its form of government has also been id ...

began awarding

subsidies A subsidy or government incentive is a form of financial aid or support extended to an economic sector (business, or individual) generally with the aim of promoting economic and social policy. Although commonly extended from the government, the ter ...

to encourage new and original art forms; Kraków suddenly emerged as a center of

avant-garde jazz Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Ori ...

, painting, theater and filmmaking. For two years, beginning in 1959, Ryszard studied art at the High School of Fine Arts in Kraków and then went on to major in painting at the

Academy of Fine Arts The following is a list of notable art schools. Accredited non-profit art and design colleges * Adelaide Central School of Art * Alberta College of Art and Design * Art Academy of Cincinnati * Art Center College of Design * The Art Institute ...

. It was at this time that he became interested in

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...

, particularly the work of American photographers.

Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

was of particular interest to Horowitz as a photography student. He photo-documented the birth of Polish Jazz, and in 1958, photographed jazz legends such as

Dave Brubeck David Warren Brubeck (; December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Often regarded as a foremost exponent of cool jazz, Brubeck's work is characterized by unusual time signatures and superimposing contrasti ...

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and Singing, vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and se ...

Count Basie William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and the ...

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was bas ...

, and

Sonny Rollins Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded over sixty albums as a ...

at the

Newport Jazz Festival The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hir ...

in the U.S. Horowitz immigrated to the United States in 1959 and enrolled at New York's

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was founded in 1887 ...

in its commercial and advertising graphic design department. There he worked with his mentors,

Richard Avedon Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 – October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. He worked for ''Harper's Bazaar'', ''Vogue'' and ''Elle'' specializing in capturing movement in still pictures of fashion, theater and danc ...

and

Alexey Brodovitch Alexey Vyacheslavovich Brodovitch (also Brodovich; be, Аляксей Брадовіч, russian: Алексе́й Вячесла́вович Бродо́вич; 1898 – April 15, 1971) was a Russian-born American photographer, designer ...

. Horowitz took part in weekly seminars led by Brodovitch and worked as an assistant for Avedon in 1963, including at his famous portrait session with

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

. After graduating from Pratt in 1962, Horowitz began working in film and television and graphic design companies, including a stint as

Art Director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and unify the vis ...

for Grey Advertising. In 1967, Horowitz opened his own photography studio in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He has developed a successful career in both fine art and commercial photography, but is most well-known for creating complex photographic composites, which have been compared to the surrealist artworks of Magritte and Dalí. Early in his career, to obtain such effects, Horowitz used a multitude of photographic techniques such as darkroom retouching, multiple film exposures and manipulation of his camera. The 2021 documentary film Polanski, Horowitz. Hometown, directed by Mateusz Kudła and Anna Kokoszka-Romer, telling the story of the childhood and youth of Ryszard Horowitz and his friend Roman Polanski, whom he met in the Krakow ghetto.

Recognition

In 2017, Horowitz was inducted into the

International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Louis, Missouri honors those who have made great contributions to the field of photography. History In 1977 the first Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Santa Barbara, California and ...

In popular culture

Horowitz was depicted as a child in Steven Spielberg's epic drama ''

Schindler's List ''Schindler's List'' is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the 1982 novel ''Schindler's Ark'' by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The film f ...

'' - a film about

Oskar Schindler Oskar Schindler (; 28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was a German industrialist, humanitarian and a member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ...

, a German businessman who saved over a thousand Polish-Jewish refugees during

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...

. Horowitz, along with other '' Schindlerjuden'', appears in the final scene as mourners at Schindler's grave in Jerusalem. Horowitz's photographs appear on the cover of both Dot Hacker's 2014 '' How's Your Process'' albums. Because of his unique style, Horowitz was asked to produce the cover for the premier issue of Nuestro magazine in 1977.

Personal life

In 1974, Horowitz married Anna Bogusz, an architect. They have two sons, Daniel and Emil.

References

External links

Official websiteBiography at culture.pl
{{DEFAULTSORT:Horowitz, Ryszard 1939 births Photographers from Kraków American Ashkenazi Jews Auschwitz concentration camp survivors Gross-Rosen concentration camp survivors Jewish American artists Kraków Ghetto inmates Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp survivors Living people Photographers from New York City Polish emigrants to the United States Polish photographers Pratt Institute alumni Officers of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland Recipients of the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis Schindlerjuden People with acquired American citizenship