American photographer (1941–2023)
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. 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 grew up in a politically conscious household and described himself as "a Marxist from Long Island." His younger sister Elizabeth Fink (1945–2015) was a lawyer.
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.
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. 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."
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."
Teaching career.
Fink taught at Bard College from 1988 to 2017. 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.
Personal life and family.
In 1969 Fink married artist Joan Snyder. Around this time, they moved from New York to Martins Creek, Pennsylvania. They had a daughter, Molly Snyder-Fink, and divorced in 1985. He was later married to Pia Staniek, with this marriage also ending in divorce. In 2000, he married Martha Posner.
Fink died from complications of kidney disease and Alzheimer's disease at his home on November 25, 2023, at the age of 82.
References.
 ;templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" / ;