Jorge Lewinski was a tireless and vivid chronicler of the world of modern art. If he never quite achieved the public acknowledgement he deserved, this was in part the result of his steadfast - some would say stubborn - vision for his remarkable collection of more than 300 photographic portraits of British artists.

Having given up photography in 1995 because he no longer liked the art being produced and did not want to deal with the marketing and PR machinery surrounding modern artists, he refused in 2002 to sell his archive to the Tate, which would have been its obvious home. Instead, he chose to let the Earl of Burlington (now the 12th Duke of Devonshire) purchase it for Chatsworth House, because he was willing to agree to an exhibition of all the 1960s and 1970s artists together, rather than just a selection of key names - as favoured by the director of the Tate, Sir Nicholas Serota. For Lewinski the point had always been to document a whole period of art history rather than promote a few famous faces.

His carefully posed black and white portraits are full of character. Lewinski captured the spirit of his subjects by photographing them in their own environment and with their work: Henry Moore is dwarfed by one of his sculptures, the pop artist Peter Blake stands, arms crossed, in front of a grafitti-covered []wall, Antony Gormley adopts the same crouched position as his sculpture. And Lewinski's project was as valuable historically as it was aesthetically. His striking, evocative images form an unparalleled archive of British artists at work over more than forty years from 1962.

Jorge Lewinski was born in 1921 in Lwow, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine, having been Lvov, USSR, from 1945 until the disintegration of the Soviet Union). When Germany and then the Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939, he fell into Russian hands and was sent to a Siberian labour camp. But after Germany invaded the Soviet Union he was released to the British Army in the Middle East, before joining the RAF. His arrival in Liverpool in 1942 at the age of 21 marked the start of a lifelong affiliation with the country where he was to remain for the rest of his life.

Lewinski did not turn to professional photography until 1968. Leaving the RAF, he studied economics and spent 14 years working in business. It was during this time he took up photography as an amateur, his talent leading to small exhibitions and the start of his artist portraits in 1962. His first subject was Felix Topolski (another Pole who had taken up residence in Britain), followed by John Piper and then Francis Bacon.

At the time, newspapers were launching colour supplements and Lewinski realised he could make a full-time living from photography. He left business, taking up the post of senior lecturer at the London College of Printing (LCP) where he remained until 1982. During this period he also married his second wife, Mayotte Magnus-Lewinska, a photographer herself.

When photography became a less prominent feature at the LCP, Lewinski started his own school near Wandsworth Common. He continued to document contemporary artists, among them the St Ives artists Barbara Hepworth and Terry Frost, as well as William Coldstream, professor at the Slade and leading light of the Euston Road school of art.

Lewinski was self-sufficient: he developed all his films and personally printed the images. He found the majority of galleries unhelpful or even hostile, so he took to simply telephoning potential subjects to ask if they would sit for him. With Francis Bacon and David Hockney this worked and Lewinski went on to photograph both on several occasions; others, such as Lucian Freud, resolutely refused.

Increasingly disaffected with the art world, in 1995 Lewinski ceased to take photographs. He had other activities to occupy himself - restoring the French palace he and his wife had bought and becoming an ardent stamp collector in later years.

As well as the British artists at the centre of his work, Lewinski also photographed leading American and French artists, and a number of other, mainly female, personalities, including the actress Diana Rigg and the Sixties fashion icon Mary Quant. He also produced landscapes. His photographs appeared in many publications and in 2005 the Royal Academy published Portrait of the Artist: Photographs by Jorge Lewinski after a dual retrospective there and at Sotheby's the previous year.

Lewinski is survived by his wife, two sons from his previous marriage and a step-daughter.

Jorge Lewinski, photographer, was born on March 25, 1921. He died on January 31, 2008, aged 86