biography
Etymology of the name Ruetz: originally identical to the Spanish Ruiz, from old Ligurian language-speaking area. Most commonly found in Vorarlberg, Switzerland and France. First documented ancestor Chevalier Claude de Ruetz, * 1582, Chalons en Champagne, † 1660, Nancy, built still-existing Château Ruetz near St. Didier.
Close family from Riga, printers and journalists, publisher of newspaper Rigasche Rundschau, biggest daily newspaper in German-speaking East, reaching from Szczecin to St. Petersburg.
Born 1940, Berlin. School education in Bremen, university education in Freiburg, Munich and Berlin, studied Sinology, with Japanology and Journalism as subsidiary subjects. Worked on a dissertation on the novel Nieh-Hai Hua by Tseng-P’u (1905) until 1969.
1975: Graduation as external student from Folkwangschule, Essen. 1969—1973 member of Stern editorial in Hamburg. Since then self-employed.
Since 1981 contract author for publishers Little, Brown & Co./New York Graphic Society, Boston, Mass. Professor for Media Design at the HBK Braunschweig.
Lived abroad for 12 years altogether, in Italy, Australia and the USA. In 2002 organised major retrospective of Hajek-Halke at the Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Kodak Photobook Prize for: Auf Goethes Spuren (In Goethe’s Footsteps), Nekropolis, APO/Berlin 1966—1969, and Land der Griechen (Land of the Greeks). Won the »Schönstes Buch der Schweiz« in 1979 for Mit Goethe in der Schweiz (With Goethe in Switzerland).
Awarded German Design Prize in 1969, Otto Steinert Prize in 1979 and Villa Massimo Prize in 1981. Member of the DGPh, the GDL/Deutsche Foto Akademie, and Akademie der Künste, Berlin. Appointed member of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres by French Minister of the Arts, Jean-Jacques Aillagon in Paris in May, 2002.