JORGE LEWINSKI (1921-2008)

“Ultimately Lewinski is an artist. The work excites a response at a deeper level, teasing at a quality of truth of which neither sitter nor photographer is necessarily altogether consciously, as opposed to intuitively, aware.”
William Packer, writer and artist

Born in Poland in 1921, he was sent to Britain in 1942 and stayed. With the brilliance of his photography, he became regarded as almost an “official” photographer of artists with exclusive access. His portfolio of 20th century artists’ portraits was a decades-long obsession that resulted in a stunning photographic documentation of a whole generation of British artists at work. The archive in its entirety is preserved at Chatsworth House.

“An extraordinary collection of portraits forming a unique and formidable record of British art over four decades.”
Lord Burlington, foreword to Portrait of the Artist: photographs by Jorge Lewinski published by the Royal Academy of Arts, 2005

Publications include:
The Racing World (Queen Anne Press, 1991) with Julian Wilson.
English Heritage (Macdonald, 1987) with Mayotte Magnus and Lord Montagu.
Venice Preserved (Michael Joseph, 1986) with Mayotte Magnus and text by Peter Lauritzen.
Photographing Britain (Shell, 1982)
The Book of Portrait Photography (Ebury, 1982)
James Joyce’s Odyssey (Hodder, 1981) with Frank Delaney.
Camera at War: a history of war photography (W H Allen, 1978)
A Writer’s Britain: landscape in literature (Thames & Hudson, 1977) with Margaret Drabble.

Click here to see a gallery of images by Jorge Lewinski