Henry Wolf

Henry Wolf (May 23, 1925 – February 14, 2005) was an Austrian-born, American graphic designer, photographer and art director. He influenced and energized magazine design during the 1950s and 1960s with his bold layouts, elegant typography, and whimsical cover photographs while serving as art director at Esquire, Bazaar, and Show magazines. Wolf opened his own photography studio, Henry Wolf Productions, in 1971, while also teaching magazine design and photography classes. In 1976, he was awarded the American Institute of Graphic Arts Medal for Lifetime Achievement and, in 1980, was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame.

Early life and education

Henry Wolf was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, on May 23, 1925. With the Anschluss and Nazi occupation of Austria in 1938, his secure childhood in Vienna ended, and his family left Austria and began a three-year odyssey through France and North Africa. Wolf studied art in Paris, but after hiding from the Germans and living in two detention camps in Morocco, the family relocated to the United States in 1941. He continued his art studies at New York City's School of Industrial Art. Wolf joined the Army in 1943, serving with an intelligence unit in the Pacific until 1946.

Career Wolf worked with photographers Richard Avedon, Melvin Sokolsky and Art Kane before he launched his own photography studio on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He became the art director of Esquire,

In 1971, Wolf launched Henry Wolf Productions, a studio devoted to photography, film, and design. For the next three decades, he worked as both photographer and designer, creating over 500 television commercials and nine films, shooting for Van Cleef & Arpels, RCA, Revlon, Borghese, Olivetti and Karastan among others.

Personal life Henry Wolf died on February 14, 2005, just short of age 80.

Awards Received the American Institute of Graphic Arts Lifetime Achievement Award on October 12, 1976, Awarded Doctor of Fine Arts honorary degree by Parsons School of Design in 1996

Publications Wolf, Henry. Visual Thinking: Methods for Making Images Memorable (1988) *Wolf, Henry. Photographed by Henry Wolf Kane, Art. Photography Book (with introduction by Henry Wolf) AIG Henry Wolf: A Retrospective (1976)