John Fowles

Frank Horvat

The noted novelist examines the impact of nature on his own life and on that of urban "civilized" man, concentrating in particular on his fascination with trees and their key role in all of his fiction

The Tree

Matthias Harder

A photograph by Frank Horvat always shows a very individual view. Shining in numerous genres, Horvat (*1928 in Abbazia, today's Opatija, Croatia) likes to transgress boundaries, and he also does not care about the comme il faut in his fashion photographs either: as early as the fifties, he goes out onto the street, brazenly positions a model in the middle of a vegetable market (1959) for Jours de France, or shortly afterwards experiments with boldly cropped motifs or amusing film quotes. 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.

Please Don't Smile

Frank Horvat (*1928 in Abbazia, today Opatija, Croatia), a pioneering fashion photographer and one of the first professional photographers to use Photoshop, can meanwhile look back at around seventy years of activity and a dazzling career. The grand seigneur now allows us very personal insight into his private life: the autobiography in pictures reveals personal moments from all phases of his life. We encounter the great themes of humankind, such as birth and death, are witness to his ability to play, and to handle animals, we see his family, his friends. They are everyday images like anyone could have assembled in an album. However, there is one slight difference: a master was clearly at work here early on, the quality of the photographs speaks for itself. In the appendix, Horvat comments, in most cases at length, on each of the chronologically ordered pictures.

Photographic Autobiography

Avec sa première grande rétrospective, Frank Horvat s'interroge sur son parcours : sans doute une volonté, pas tant de représenter ce qui se trouve devant l'objectif, que de le cadrer, dans la grille de référence de ses propres origines, de sa culture, de ses expériences, de sa perception du présent et de son anticipation de l'avenir.

Frank Horvat

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