Michael Ruetz was a German photographer, artist, journalist and author.
16 Facts About Michael Ruetz
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Michael Ruetz became first known for photos of the West German student movement that were published by international papers and magazines.
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Michael Ruetz focused later on cultural-historical and documentary projects, exploring the "visual world" of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Theodor Fontane in series such as In Goethe's Footsteps.
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Michael Ruetz's ancestors were from Riga, where they worked as printers, journalists and publishers.
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Michael Ruetz studied photography at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste with Heinz Hajek-Halke.
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In 1976, Michael Ruetz graduated as external student from the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen.
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Michael Ruetz was a member of the staff of Stern magazine in Hamburg from 1969 to 1974.
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Michael Ruetz was the sole heir of Hajek-Halke's artistic work and managed his estate from 1983 until 2020.
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Michael Ruetz organised major retrospectives of Hajek-Halke at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2002, at Kunstbibliothek Berlin and at the Academy of Arts, Berlin, in 2012.
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Michael Ruetz was vice president of the Academy's section for film and media from 2016 to 2018.
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Michael Ruetz lived in Italy, Australia and the United States for 12 years.
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Michael Ruetz settled with his family in the Chiemgau where they lived for 23 years, and later returned to Berlin.
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Michael Ruetz died on 2December 2024, at the age of 84, at the Deutsches Herzzentrum Berlin.
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Michael Ruetz became first known through his photographs of the West German student movement during his studies.
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In 1968, Michael Ruetz covered the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops and reported for Stern on the military dictatorship in Greece, as on the World Festival of Youth and Students 1973 and the International Workers' Day 1974 in East Berlin.
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Michael Ruetz later accompanied Francois Mitterrand on his election campaign, visited Chile after the victory of Salvador Allende and reported on the war in Guinea-Bissau and on many other international events.