The Viennese photographer, author and journalist Michael Horowitz is dead. Horowitz wrote several series for the “Presse am Sonntag”. Memories of a versatile person.
The Viennese photographer, author and journalist Michael Horowitz is dead. He “fell asleep peacefully and pain-free” on Friday at the age of 73, said his wife Angelika Horowitz. Horowitz wrote for many years in the “Presse am Sonntag”. He wrote several series, for example on “Poets & Thinkers”, great Austrian artists and “Viennese Originals”, which were also published in collected form as books.
Michael Horowitz, who was born in Vienna in 1950, was a photographer, writer and publisher. Among other things, he wrote biographies about Heimito von Doderer, Egon Erwin Kisch, Karl Kraus and his friends HC Artmann, Otto Schenk and Helmut Qualtinger. From a young age, he traveled all over the world with his camera – and all the way to Favoriten.
The school principal saw him on TV that evening
Michael Horowitz was in the 7th grade when he reported a stomach ache to the senior teacher. He was allowed to leave school, but instead of going to bed he hopped on his moped and drove to Schwechat, where King Olav V of Norway had just landed. Horowitz made it to the front row with his camera. It’s just a shame that the director recognized him on television that evening. Horowitz said that he then ended his school career prematurely. While his classmates were studying the subjects he hated, mathematics and DG, he was already in New York and South Africa.
Later he wrote biographies about Heimito von Doderer and Karl Kraus, founded the “Leisure” supplement of the “Kurier”, and did not pick up a camera for 25 years, except to photograph his dogs. But in the end “the desire was too great”. Between 1966 and 2020, “50 Years of Images of Humanity,” as the name of his exhibition was given to him by Danielle Spera in the Jewish Museum on Judenplatz in 2016, spanned the period.
Horowitz had only limited roots in Judaism. His Jewish father, a theater photographer, came from Galicia, his mother was a Protestant Berliner, “two worlds” came together here. Religion meant little to Horowitz. “Atheist would be an auxiliary term for me.” What interested him were the people. “I was never interested in waiting for a sunset. For me it was all about the landscape of the face.”
Photographing Qualtinger? “No art”
He knew Helmut Qualtinger from the municipal building in Sievering. Under the walnut tree in the Buschenschank opposite was always reserved for Qualtinger and his friends. “That’s when you felt: Something was happening.” Later, legendary pictures were created with Qualtinger. “If you met him and he was in a good mood, he was ready for any excursion.” The two visited an aerobatic pilot in Trausdorf in Burgenland. “I, in my youthful exuberance, and he, because he had perhaps already had a bit to drink, took off with the madman.” Of course, Qualtinger was already a famous enfant terrible, and photographing him was “not art.” . Horowitz was proud of pictures of people whose charisma he himself had recognized early on. For example, the pictures of the Viennese pop artist Kiki Kogelnik, whom he was able to visit in New York when he was still a teenager.
Thomas Bernhard on his bike
Thomas Bernhard was also still relatively unknown when he and a “Spiegel” editor besieged him in Ohlsdorf for three days. Shortly before the journalist had to leave, a final attempt was made. The gate opened and Bernhard received. And towards the end he asked if they wanted to take a photo of him on his bike in the basement. The picture has appeared hundreds of times to date. It’s not just the moment, said Horowitz, that is crucial for a good picture: “It’s important that you stick with it.” And that the person being photographed has the confidence that they won’t be disavowed.
There was Arik Brauer sitting naked on his easel, Ernst Fuchs lying in the bubble bath, Arnold Schwarzenegger sitting (half) naked in the Hawelka, Fred Sinowatz wearing a clown costume with a stuffed bunny. “Michael Horowitz was someone who saw and discovered, who felt and recognized – as a photographer and writer,” as Hugo Portisch once wrote. A sentence, said Horowitz, that pleased him. We therefore want to repeat it here. And let it stand – for eternity.
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