Howard Kanovitz (1929-2009) was a painter based in New York City and Southampton, NY. After an early career as a jazz trombonist, Kanovitz began painting in 1949 and studied at The Rhode Island School of Design and The Art Students League in Woodstock with Yasuo Kuniyoshi. He moved to New York City and apprenticed with Franz Kline. Although he began his painting career as an abstract expressionist, Kanovitz became one of the early practitioners of photorealism in the 1960s. He also taught at the Salzburger Summer Art School and the School of Visual Arts and took on set design projects in both America and Germany. Kanovitz had more than fifty one-person gallery shows, with his last in 2008, one year before he died.