Art Seitz, a photographer whose intimate images of tennis greats captured the sport’s soul both on and off the court for half a century, died on Aug. 23 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 82.
The death, in a hospital, was caused by heart and kidney failure, said his sister, Polly Seitz.
“Art’s archive of tennis — yesterday, today and tomorrow — is of importance and value to the history of the sport and all who knew him in the tennis community,” Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, the widow of the tennis champion Arthur Ashe, said in a statement.
Arthur MacGregor Seitz III was born on Oct. 7, 1942, in Lakewood, N.J., to Isabelle (Stricker) Seitz and Arthur MacGregor Seitz Jr., who worked in sales.
Arthur Jr. played tennis at Lake Wales High School in Lake Wales, about 60 miles east of Tampa, and majored in advertising at the University of Florida, which he attended on a tennis scholarship, graduating in 1965. During games, he would pause to take photos of other players; he published his first photos in local newspapers while still in college, his sister said.
Mr. Seitz served for four years in the Air Force as a captain in Germany and France and on Long Island. He later enrolled at Florida Atlantic University on the G.I. Bill, earning an M.B.A., and then began working on a Ph.D.
At first he photographed tennis matches to earn extra money, but it became his passion. He was the first official photographer for the Virginia Slims Circuit, the women’s professional tennis tour that started in 1970, and the first staff photographer for World Tennis magazine. He also contributed photographs to Tennis Week for 30 years and was the first official photographer of World Team Tennis, a coed league that started in 1973. He was a contract photographer for more than 20 years with the Gamma Press Images photo agency in Paris, which disseminated his work to publications in about 40 countries.
In addition to his sister, Mr. Seitz is survived by his brother, Russell.
Ash Wu contributed reporting.
