Larry Fink (photographer) explained

Larry Fink
Birth Name:Laurence Bruce Fink
Birth Date:11 March 1941
Birth Place:New York City, U.S.
Death Place:Martins Creek, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Education:The New School for Social Research
Relatives:Elizabeth Fink (sister)
Children:1
Occupation:Photographer

Laurence Bruce Fink (March 11, 1941 – November 25, 2023) was an American photographer and educator, best known for his black-and-white images of people at parties and in other social situations.

Early life and education

Laurence Bruce Fink was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, on March 11, 1941. The family moved to West Hempstead, New York when Fink was thirteen.[1] [2] His father, Bernard Fink, was a lawyer, and his mother, Sylvia Caplan Fink, was an anti-nuclear weapons activist and an elder rights activist for the Gray Panthers. He had a younger sister, Elizabeth Fink.[3] He grew up in a politically conscious household and described himself as "a Marxist from Long Island."[4] [5] His younger sister Elizabeth Fink (1945–2015) was a lawyer.[3]

Fink 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.[4] [6]

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.[4] 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."[7]

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 City, in a show titled The Forbidden Pictures: A Political Tableau.[8]

Teaching career

Fink taught at Bard College from 1988 to 2017.[1] He had previously 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.[4] [6] [9]

Personal life and family

In 1969 Fink married artist Joan Snyder. Around this time, they moved from New York to Martins Creek, Pennsylvania.[1] They had a daughter, Molly Snyder-Fink,[10] [11] and divorced in 1985. He was later married to Pia Staniek, with this marriage also ending in divorce.[1] In 2000, he married Martha Posner.[12] [13]

Fink died from complications of kidney disease and Alzheimer's disease at his home on November 25, 2023, at the age of 82.[1] [14]

Awards and honors

Publications

Notes

  1. News: Larry Fink, Whose Photographs Were ‘Political, Not Polemical,’ Dies at 82. Green. Penelope. November 30, 2023. November 30, 2023. The New York Times. limited.
  2. News: Seymour . Tom . 2016-02-11 . Larry Fink's best photograph: a drumbeat transcends a jazz gig . en-GB . The Guardian . 2023-11-26 . 0261-3077.
  3. News: Roberts. Sam. Elizabeth M. Fink, a Lawyer for Attica Inmates and Radicals, Dies at 70. June 17, 2017. The New York Times. September 24, 2015.
  4. Web site: Katrina Doerner Photographs: Larry Fink . September 25, 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120414113949/http://www.katrinadoerner.com/larryfinkbio.htm . April 14, 2012 . dead .
  5. Web site: Visura Magazine » LARRY FINK | The Beats.
  6. http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/fink_larry.php Larry Fink, American, born 1941
  7. Web site: ART IN REVIEW; Larry Fink -- 'Social Graces' (Published 2001). Ken. Johnson. September 28, 2001. The New York Times.
  8. Web site: ART IN REVIEW; Larry Fink (Published 2004). Ken. Johnson. July 2, 2004. The New York Times.
  9. Web site: Archived copy . September 25, 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100203014000/http://www.larryfinkphotography.com/LarryFink-Biography.pdf . February 3, 2010 . dead .
  10. News: Rosenblum . Constance . 2010-05-14 . A Brooklyn House With Country Roots . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-11-27 . 0362-4331.
  11. Web site: Joan Snyder . 2023-11-27 . Jewish Women's Archive . en.
  12. News: Brady . Lois Smith . 2000-05-14 . Weddings: Vows; Martha Posner and Larry Fink . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-11-27 . 0362-4331.
  13. News: Copage . Eric V. . 2010-12-24 . Martha Posner and Larry Fink . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-11-27 . 0362-4331.
  14. News: Sante . Lucy . A Fond Farewell to Photographer Larry Fink, 82 . 28 November 2023 . Vanity Fair . 28 November 2023.
  15. http://www.gf.org/fellows Guggenheim Foundation Fellows list
  16. Web site: video: ICP INFINITY AWARDS 2015 : LARRY FINK . 2023-11-26 . Juxtapoz Magazine . en-gb.
  17. A companion volume has photographs by Gabriele Basilico and Augusto Alves da Silva.
  18. News: 2015-07-12 . Loggers captured at work in Larry Fink's Opening the Sky . en-GB . BBC News . 2023-11-26.

External links

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Larry Fink (photographer)".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.