Published by Hatje Cantz. Edited by Jordan Alves. Introduction by Amos Gitai. Text by Frank Horvat.
From 1979 to 1986, the city of New York functioned as a kind of refuge for photographer Frank Horvat (born 1928). Born in present-day Croatia, for years Horvat lived and worked rather nomadically, traveling extensively through Asia and Europe on photojournalist excursions with a brief stopover in Paris where he shot fashion photography for Jardins de Mode and Elle. Eventually he found himself in New York; during this period, he allowed himself to surrender to the daily hustle and bustle of the city streets. In between commissions, Horvat created a prolific series of photography and writing that was not intended for public consumption, instead functioning as a reflection upon his own craft as well as the significance of photography itself.
Frank Horvat: Side Walk publishes many of these photographs for the first time alongside the photographer’s writing. The elegant presentation of this clothbound volume is representative of the great pride that Horvat took in the creation of his personal projects as well as his professional pursuits: the photojournalist's texts are published on thin Munken offset paper and his photographs are printed on deep matte photo paper. This publication is both a compelling depiction of a beloved city and a portrait of the sensitive man behind the camera.
Published by Silvana Editoriale. Edited by Bruna Biamino, Giovanni Rimoldi. Text by Frank Horvat.
More than 200 works by Croatian-born, France-based photographer Frank Horvat (born 1928) known for his midcentury work in photography, are presented in this comprehensive monograph, alongside images of his personal collection and a selection of works by photography masters with whom Horvat maintained close relationships and exchanges. These include Don McCullin, Robert Doisneau, Sarah Moon, Helmut Newton and Marc Riboud. Excelling in numerous genres, Horvat is famed for his disregard of genre conventions, as this volume amply demonstrates. At the beginning of the 1990s, he was one of the first major photographers to experiment with Photoshop. In 1998, he replaced his professional equipment with a compact camera. As early as the 1950s he was cheerfully demystifying fashion photography, going out onto the street, brazenly positioning a model in the middle of a vegetable market or experimenting with bold cropping or humorous film quotation.
Now in his late eighties, the Croatian-born, France-based photographer Frank Horvat (born 1928), a pioneering fashion photographer and one of the first professional photographers to use Photoshop, can look back at around 70 years of activity and a dazzling career.
With this volume, Horvat furnishes us with a personal insight into his long life. This autobiography-in-pictures reveals personal moments from all phases of his life: we see his family and his friends, witness the arc of his extraordinary career, and encounter the great themes of humankind, such as birth and death. These are everyday images, but the quality of the photographs speaks for itself. In the appendix, Horvat comments, often at length, on each of the pictures.
Excelling in numerous genres, Frank Horvat (born 1928) likes to transgress boundaries, and he does not worry about the conventions of the genre in his fashion photographs: as early as the 1950s, he was going out onto the street, brazenly positioning a model in the middle of a vegetable market (1959) for Jours de France, or, shortly afterwards, experimenting with bold cropping or humorous film quotation. In doing so, Horvat mostly dispenses with artificial light and shoots many of his fantastic pictures with a 35mm Leica from the hip, so to speak. He works for Elle, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and other major magazines, with famous models and celebrities, and he is the first photographer ever to use Photoshop for his work. Respect for the portrayed women and palpable endearment distinguish Horvat’s sensual, elegant pictures from those by all other photographers on the fashion scene.
Frank Horvat
Frank Horvat: Photographic Autobiography
Frank Horvat: Please Don't Smile