“I don’t remember the first six years of my life”, deplores Ryszard Horowitz, regularly questioned about this period when he knew the ghetto and the concentration camps, in particular Auschwitz. Born May 5, 1939 in Krakow, four months before the Nazis invaded Poland, he was part of the Schindlerjuden, these some 1,200 Jews whom the German industrialist Oskar Schindler saved from the gas chambers by putting them to work in his enamel and ammunition factories. Ryszard Horowitz is today one of the last representatives of this group still alive.
For a long time, his childhood remained a great mystery for him, of which he only kept a few fragments. At the age of 20, he left communist Poland to continue his studies in New York, with a camera in his pocket. Travel was so regulated at that time that the Polish authorities wrote on his passport that he undertook to return it as soon as he returned home. Ryszard Horowitz never came back. At least never again with a Polish passport.
The start was not easy. His parents had earlier had the option of joining Israel or the United States, but had preferred to postpone their decision to take care of his grandparents. In the meantime, the communist regime has hardened.
Pushing the limits of the imagination
In New York, Ryszard Horowitz is welcomed and lodged by his uncle, Henry Rosner. He joined the Pratt Institute, one of the main art schools in the United States, whose campus is located in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Unlike many of his more dilettante comrades, the future photographer took full advantage of the cultural riches of New York and established his headquarters at the Metropolitan Museum.
This great jazz lover who, at the end of the 1950s, had photographed the underground scene of his country also discovered, especially in Manhattan, the clubs where, for 1 dollar, you can listen to music all night long. Over the years, he will immortalize the greatest in concert: Louis Armstrong, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sonny Rollins…
From this passion for the image, he will make a profession. After studying graphic design, he became the assistant of the great American fashion photographer Richard Avedon, then ended up, in 1967, by opening his own studio in New York. In the meantime, he briefly worked for film, television and advertising. Since then, Ryszard Horowitz has become known for his use of special effects in photography, drawing inspiration from Magritte and Dalí. Time, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar publish his pictures.
You have 84.15% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.