Frank Horvat

Curated by KLV Art Project
Forum am Schillerplatz
Robert-Stolz-Platz 3, 1010 Vienna
A project within the framework of Foto Wien 2023 and in partnership with the Institut français d’Autriche-Vienne.

Born in what was then Italy and is now Croatia, Frank Horvat (1928-2020) sold his stamp collection in high school in 1946 to buy his first camera. He settled in Paris in 1956, taking a job at Magnum upon meeting Henri Cartier-Bresson. While his photojournalist assignments took him around the world, he also plunged deep into fashion, bringing a poetic sensibility to it that made his work stand out.

By directing his models out of the studio and into the streets, photographing them amidst real life situations, Horvat brought about a revolution in fashion photography that would be influential throughout the twentieth century, until today.

Horvat’s love for the medium extends beyond what he does himself to a considerable collection he displayed in a gallery at his home, comprised mostly of images from fellow masters and close friends (such as Marc Riboud, Jeanloup Sieff, Mario Giacomelli).

A project within the framework of Foto Wien 2023, the exhibition features for the first time in Austria Frank Horvat’s photographs of New York over several trips he made between 1982 and 1987. The book Side Walk, of the New York series, was published by Xavier Barral and Hatje Cantz in October 2020