Born in 1951 in New York, Ben Katchor is the author of The Jew of New York, a book in which the central character, estate photographer Julius Knipl, walks the New York streets and catches the minute details of the city's life and its inhabitants. This imaginative comedy got a tremendous success in the United States so that his author is now considered to be one of today's most innovative American cartoonists.

He also publishes strips in the New York Press, the Washington DC City Paper and a number of other American newspapers. He designs a monthly page for the architecture magazine Metropolis and often organizes readings and slide-shows. He was awarded the MacArthur Foundation Grant in 2000.

As the école Européenne Supérieure de l'Image (EESI) presents him with its 2008 award, they will organize a monographic exhibition including original plates and films. For the very first time in France, one can discover the colourful world created by an explorer of images in constant search for innovation. This is also a way of reasserting the major part played by the EESI, an Angoulême art school in which several generations of talented authors (Nicolas de Crécy, David Prudhomme, O'Groj, etc.) studied and trained.