Photographer Rainer Hosch moved to New York from Austria in 1998, but his big break came two years earlier, when he received a call from Falco. "Servus, it's Hans here. I'd like to come by and see you," he said.
Hosch described the resulting photoshoot as "pure magic." The momentum following Falco's portraits propelled Hosch to New York, where he connected through Austrian-born agent Walter Schupfer, a former model-turned-industry figure, and built a reputation as a portraitist skilled at capturing authentic moments of his subjects.
Now living in Los Angeles, Hosch's portfolio spans celebrities, musicians, politicians, and athletes: Iggy Pop, George Clooney, Kim Kardashian, Kamala Harris, Allyson Felix, and many more. His collection of portraits, 52icons, presents these photographs as a digital retrospective of his career so far. But the subject of "Icon #1" is not a household name. It is Hosch's father, photographer Heinz Hosch, who passed away suddenly when Rainer was 11.
In the black-and-white image, the senior Hosch is pointing a vintage Rolleiflex camera at the photographer, sporting a wide grin. Heinz Hosch went on to work as a photojournalist for Austrian national newspapers (Die Presse, Kurier), traveling the world, most famously documenting the Prague Spring in 1968 and the Salzburg Festival in 1981.
"The day my mom told me he passed away was the day I decided to become a photographer and carry on his legacy," Hosch explains. His father remains an important thread connecting him back to Austria; Hosch has published an online archive of Heinz's work and hopes to find a permanent home for a physical archive at a museum in Austria.
While preparing for his next exhibition called ICONS, Hosch discovered that his father had documented the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck. Fifty years later, Hosch returns to the same city with a retrospective spanning four decades of portrait work, alongside new portraits of Austrian winter sports legends. ICONS opens October 3, 2026, at Galerie im BTV Stadtforum.
Hosch has exhibited his work internationally for more than two decades, including his 2025 solo show, POP STAR, in Vienna. "This exhibition felt like a major milestone," Hosch said of the show. "Seeing decades of portraits come together in my native Vienna, surrounded by the community that has supported me every step of the way, I am deeply thankful."
His practice spans fine art, editorial, and commercial work across Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States. In addition to ICONS in Innsbruck, he is preparing shows in Denmark and Lisbon, and hopes to return to Vienna in 2027 with a new Falco project.
Photography, Hosch said, is his "dream job," one that keeps him rooted in human connection wherever he works. "I get to meet new people. And normally, when you take a portrait of someone, there's some sort of collaboration, or people want to give you something of themselves, to show a little bit of themselves, and you're there to capture it. It's a real connection to people that I enjoy."
Though he has built his life in California with his family, Hosch remains clear-eyed about his identity. “I've been in the US for such a long time, my kids were born here, I own property here,” he said. “And I still represent Austria on a daily basis.”
