Thomas Dworzak was born in Kötzting, Germany, in 1972 and grew up in the small town of Cham in the Bavarian Forest. Towards the end of his high school studies, he began to travel and photograph in Europe and the Middle East, living in Avila, Prague and Moscow, and studying Spanish, Czech and Russian. After photographing the war in former Yugoslavia, he lived in Tbilisi, Georgia, from 1993 until 1998. He documented the conflicts in Chechnya, Karabakh and Abkhazia as well as working on a larger-scale project about the Caucasus region and its people which was published in 2011 as the book "Kavkaz".
Based in Paris since 1999, he covered the Kosovo crisis, mostly for US News and World Report, and he returned to Chechnya the same year. After the fall of Grozny in early 2000, he began a project on the impact of the war in Chechnya on the neighboring North Caucasus. He also photographed events in Israel, the war in Macedonia, and the refugee crisis in Pakistan.
After 9/11, Dworzak spent several months in Afghanistan on an assignment for the New Yorker. He returned to Chechnya in 2002. Since then he has photographed in Iraq, Iran and Haiti, and covered. Based mainly in New York since 2004, Dworzak has been photographing the world of American politics and the impact of the war in Iraq. He is currently working on the projects M*A*S*H IRAQ, and Valiassr, an essay on Tehran's main avenue.
The decade after 9/11 Dworzak extensively covered the ensuing wars, Afghanistan, Iraq and it's impact on US politics. This led to the book M*A*S*H* IRAQ.
Based out of New York he covered these and the main international news stories such as Chechnya, Nigeria, Haiti, Chad, Ethiopia, the revolutions in the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine and Iran mainly for TIME Magazine and The New Yorker.
These assignments in Iran led to the project "Valiassr Avenue" about Tehran's longest street, which is still in progress.
In 2008-2009 Thomas Dworzak returned to Georgia for the Magnum Group project "Georgian Spring". He started working on a new project on the Caucasus and spent 2011 embedded in Afghanistan.
He continues to cover some news stories, such as the "Arab Spring" in Libya and Egypt.
Dworzak became a Magnum nominee in 2000 and a member in 2004.
Exhibitions
2012 Frontline, ( Group Show ), Duesseldorf.
2010-12 Kavkaz, Paris, Tbilisi, Thessaloniki, Moscow.
2009 Georgian Spring, (Magnum Group Show) Berlin, Madrid,
2006 Katrina (Group Show), Groenigen, The Netherlands
2004/05 Off Broadway, New York, New York, USA; Arles, France; Berlin, Germany
2000 The Fall of Grozny, Visa pour l’Image, Perpignan, France
1997/98 Caucasus, Galerie Génériques, France; Maison Robert Doisneau, Gentilly, France
1995 La Vie comme dans un Miroir, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
Books
2011 Kavkaz, Schilt Publishing, The Netherlands
2007 M*A*S*H Iraq, Trolley, UK
2003 Taliban, Trolley, UK?
Awards
2005 Picture of the Year International Award
2003 POYs
2002 POYs
2001 World Press Photo (Spot News Story, 1st prize), Amsterdam, Netherlands
2001 Prix Bayeux , France
2001 Prix Terre d’Images Scoop d’Angers, France
2000 Prix Kodak, Kodak Young Photographer of the Year
