About the Artists

Erich Lessing

Erich Lessing was born into a Jewish family in Vienna in 1923 as the son of a dentist and a concert pianist. He fled Vienna for Palestine in 1939, just to return to Vienna in 1945 to become one of the most important Austrian and international photographers, as well as a photojournalist for the Associated Press in 1947, a full member of Magnum Photos and chronicler of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising against Soviet occupation.

Erich Lessing achieved renown through his candid pictures of major political moments of his day, with his documentation of the signing of the Austrian State Treaty, now serving as the iconic symbol of the reformation of Austria as a sovereign state after World War II. His famous portrait subjects included the likes of Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles, Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle. From the 1960s on, he turned his focus to the arts, notably serving as on-set photographer for The Sound of Music starring Julie Andrews, which celebrates its 50-year anniversary in 2015.

Andrew Mezvinsky

Andrew Margolies Mezvinsky was born in 1982 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is currently based in Vienna, Austria.

He uses a large variety of different techniques such as india ink, graphite, oil, pastel, collages and indian dyeing technique and introduces mixed media into his sculptural drawings, paintings and videos. His work has been shown internationally such as at the Biennale di Venezia as a part of the Art group RGB (Slovenia). In 2007 he contributed a fabrication installation for a satellite fair of the Art Basel in Switzerland. Under his direction, in October 2011, "Il Fazzoletto" a contemporary divertimento/operetta, celebrated its premiere at the Institute of Fine Arts in San Francisco. His art is part of many private and museums' collections such as The Hirshhorn Collection in Washington DC, the Brot Kunsthalle in Vienna, Zanabazar Museum in Mongolia and the Jüdisches Museum Vienna as well as the collections of Jim Lambie (UK), Jane Holzer, (USA) Ernst Hilger (Austria), Albert Baker Knoll (USA), Franz West (Austria) and Bernhard and Elizabeth Hainz (Austria). 

www.andrewmezvinsky.com