George S. Zimbel was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, on July 15, 1929. He now lives in Montreal Quebec Canada. He started photographing in the 1940's while in High School, and began doing work for the Woburn Daily Times and local industries.
In 1947, when he began his studies at Columbia College in New York City, Zimbel was soon a photographer/writer for the Columbia Daily Spectator. After frequent trips downtown to show his work at Life Magazine, he had his first picture published in Life (“Water gun fad”).
Through this work he was recommended by the Columbia publications office to PIX Inc., one of the first photo agencies and was taken on as a stringer under the tutelage of Franz Furst, the Pix assignment editor who mentored the younger photographers. This group of young photographers consisted of Ed Feingersh, Bob Schwalberg, Larry Fried, Bob Henriquez, GarryWinogrand & George Zimbel.
Using his influential documentary style Zimbel has worked annual report projects for Carborundum Company, General Railway Signal, Xerox, Mobile Oil Company, IBM as well a working for McGill University for there book “McGill a Celebration”.
After returning to the U.S. in 1953 he became a member of the American Society of Magazine Photographers. Zimbel established himself doing freelance work, for publications such as The New York Times, Look, Redbook, Parents, Pageant, Saturday Review and Architectural Forum. When he moved to Canada in 1971 he was asked to be the official photographer for the Queen’s visit, as well as Pierre Trudeau, Joe Clark and Rene Levesque.
George S. Zimbel continues to produce new work and print previously unseen images from his archive. His activity reflects his feeling that creative people speed up as they get older because they have a backlog of ideas and projects and have the realisation that time is finite. In an era of increased manipulation of the photographic image by computer technology, Zimbel’s commitment to the "straight" photograph has become stronger. He sees the early 21st century as a period in which classic photography will have its last flowering. He was recently inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
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