Short answers, pulled from the story.
Osamu Dezaki was a Japanese anime director and screenwriter who worked from 1963 until his death in 2011. He is best known for his distinctive visual style, particularly the "postcard memory" technique, in which a scene fades into a detailed painterly still image, and for his use of split screen, stark lighting, and dutch angles.
The postcard memory was a technique Dezaki developed in which the animated image transitions into a detailed "painting" of the simpler original animation. The screen fades to a static, painterly composition before returning to movement. It became his most famous trademark and influenced the visual language of Japanese animation broadly.
Dezaki co-founded Madhouse with Masao Maruyama, Rintaro, and Yoshiaki Kawajiri after his time at Mushi Production. Madhouse went on to become one of the major anime studios in Japan.
Dezaki particularly influenced Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Yoshiyuki Tomino, Ryutaro Nakamura, Noriyuki Abe, Kunihiko Ikuhara, Akiyuki Shinbo, and Yutaka Yamamoto. Many of his visual techniques came to be seen as defining special techniques of Japanese animation.
Dezaki made his debut as a director in 1970 with Ashita no Joe, the boxing series on which he handled direction, screenplay, and episode direction. He had previously worked as an animator and episode director on earlier series going back to 1963.
Osamu Dezaki died from lung cancer on the 17th of April 2011, at the age of 67. He was a notorious chain smoker throughout his life.