Larry Fink
Born (1941-03-11) March 11, 1941 (age 82)
Brooklyn, New York City, US
EducationThe New School for Social Research
OccupationPhotographer

Larry Fink (born March 11, 1941) is an American photographer best known for his black-and-white images of people at parties and in other social situations.

Life and career

Fink was born in 1941 in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Bernard Fink, was a lawyer, and mother, Sylvia Caplan Fink, was an anti-nuclear weapon activist and an elder rights activist for the Gray Panthers. His younger sister was noted lawyer Elizabeth Fink (1945–2015).[1] He grew up in a politically conscious household and has described himself as "a Marxist from Long Island."[2][3] He studied at the New School for Social Research in New York City, where photographer Lisette Model was one of his teachers and encouraged his work.[2][4]

He has been on the faculty of Bard College since 1986. Earlier he taught at other institutions including the Yale University School of Art (1977–1978), Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture (1978–1983), Parsons School of Design, and New York University.[2][4][5]

Larry Fink left his longtime photography agency Bill Charles Represents on May 23, 2012.

Works

Fink's best-known work is Social Graces, a series of photographs he produced in the 1970s that depicted and contrasted wealthy Manhattanites at fashionable clubs and social events alongside working-class people from rural Pennsylvania participating in events such as high school graduations. Social Graces was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1979 and was published in book form in 1984.[2][6] A New York Times reviewer described the series as exploring social class by comparing "two radically divergent worlds", while accomplishing "one of the things that straight photography does best: provid[ing] excruciatingly intimate glimpses of real people and their all-too-fallibly-human lives."[6]

In 2001, for an assignment from The New York Times Magazine, Fink created a series of satirical color images of President George W. Bush and his cabinet (portrayed by stand-ins) in scenes of decadent revelry modeled on paintings by Weimar-era painters Max Beckmann, Otto Dix and George Grosz. The planned publication of the series was canceled after the September 11 attacks, but was displayed in the summer of 2004 at the PowerHouse Gallery in New York, in a show titled "The Forbidden Pictures: A Political Tableau."[7]

Awards and honors

Fink was the recipient of Guggenheim Fellowships in 1976[8] and 1979 and National Endowment for the Arts Individual Photography Fellowships in 1978 and 1986. In 2002 he received an honorary doctorate from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.[5]

Publications

Six books by Larry Fink (flanked by irrelevant Pelicans); from left to right: Social Graces (1984), Social Graces (1999), Runway, The Forbidden Pictures, Primal Elegance, Boxing
Six books by Larry Fink (flanked by irrelevant Pelicans); from left to right: Social Graces (1984), Social Graces (1999), Runway, The Forbidden Pictures, Primal Elegance, Boxing

Notes

  1. ^ A companion volume (ISBN 9729143242) has photographs by Gabriele Basilico and Augusto Alves da Silva.

References

  1. ^ Roberts, Sam (September 24, 2015). "Elizabeth M. Fink, a Lawyer for Attica Inmates and Radicals, Dies at 70". The New York Times. Retrieved June 17, 2017.
  2. ^ a b c d "Katrina Doerner Photographs: Larry Fink". Archived from the original on April 14, 2012. Retrieved September 25, 2010.
  3. ^ "Visura Magazine » LARRY FINK | The Beats".
  4. ^ a b Larry Fink, American, born 1941, Museum of Contemporary Photography
  5. ^ a b "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 3, 2010. Retrieved September 25, 2010.((cite web)): CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. ^ a b Johnson, Ken (September 28, 2001). "ART IN REVIEW; Larry Fink -- 'Social Graces' (Published 2001)" – via NYTimes.com.
  7. ^ Johnson, Ken (July 2, 2004). "ART IN REVIEW; Larry Fink (Published 2004)" – via NYTimes.com.
  8. ^ Guggenheim Foundation Fellows list, accessed September 25, 2010

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