NEW YORK, NY.- Larry Fink: Hands On / A Passionate Life of Looking is a 424-page encapsulation of Larry Fink’s masterful photos accompanied by insightful essays from Lucy Sante, Stephen Shore, Graydon and Ash Carter, Yolanda Cuomo, and publisher Daniel Power. The publication offers an unprecedented overview of Fink’s career and his profound influence in the Lisette Model world (under whom he was mentored) on photography and on broader American culture.
Celebrated as a photographer of the people, Larry Fink was known for his impromptu, street-style black-and-white photographs that delve into societal complexities, class divides, and the essence of human connection. Throughout his career, which spanned from the 1950s to his passing in November 2023, Fink documented a broad spectrum of subjects, ranging from the glamorous scenes of Vanity Fair Oscar parties to the streets of impoverished Philadelphia neighborhoods. He dedicated himself to authentically portraying the human experience across diverse communities.
Larry Fink: Hands On / A Passionate Life of Looking presents a comprehensive exploration of Fink’s remarkable career for the first time. Fink meticulously archived his images in boxes, where they often remained forgotten for months or even years. However, during the pandemic, he dedicated himself to combing through these boxes with the dream of creating a retrospective of his work: photographs and beat-style poetry. This endeavor gained momentum when Daniel Power, founder of powerHouse Books and a longtime collaborator of Fink, photographers Jonno Rattman and Jamie Cabreza, and art director Yolanda Cuomo joined Fink in his archival journey. They unearthed a trove of unseen treasures, resulting in a meticulously curated testament to Fink’s unparalleled creativity alongside his trademark jazz poetry.
Larry Fink was a two-time National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a professor of photography at Bard College. Fink had solo exhibitions globally at institutions including The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Musée de la Photographie in Belgium, and the Musee de l’Elysee in Switzerland. He showed in galleries regularly in New York, Los Angeles, and Paris. His monographs Boxing (1998), Runway (2000), Social Graces (2001), Forbidden Pictures (2004), and The Beats (2014) were published by powerHouse Books. Fink’s work has appeared in top publications including Vanity Fair, W, GQ, Detour, New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker.
Fink’s ability to capture the essence of his subjects, whether celebrities, politicians, or everyday individuals, earned him critical acclaim and established him as a master of the documentary genre. Through his lens, Fink invites us to contemplate the intricacies of the human condition, inviting empathy, introspection, and a deeper understanding of the world around us. Fink passed away at the age of 82 on November 25th, 2023.
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