Robert Mann Gallery presents Larry Fink

Photographer Lisette Model, whose work impacted Fink considerably, privately tutored and mentored him. He was heavily influenced by his family’s duality, particularly the conflicting personality of his mother, whom he has described as a bourgeois woman and a Marxist.

Fink has lived and worked on a farm near Martins Creek, Pennsylvania, since the 1970s, where he met the Sabatines. Images of this family will eventually play a significant role in the series Social Graces. Fink documented ordinary occasions in their life, such as birthday parties and graduations, while also examining Manhattan Society’s top crust. Fink would visit New York City parties and capture the idiosyncrasies of Manhattan’s high society, traveling hours back and forth in his truck and downing gin and tonics at the bar to become acquainted with the environment. He’d then drive back home to develop his film right away. These photos of the Sabatine Family and high society events addressed socioeconomic issues and paved the stage for Fink’s most celebrated series, Social Graces. Social Graces was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1979, and Aperture released his first monograph in 1984.

Fink’s particular technique, which includes the use of a handheld flash separate from his camera, allows him to isolate his figures in space, distinguishing his work while he explores his subjects with empathy. To name a few, his work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, W, and GQ Magazine. He has taught at universities such as Bard College, Yale University School of Art, Cooper Union, Parsons School of Design, and New York University for almost a half-century. Fink and Judith Joy Ross will also have an exhibition called Timestamp at the Allentown Art Museum from December 15, 2022 to April 16, 2023.

Larry Fink’s solo exhibitions have included the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, the Musee de l’Elysee in Switzerland, the Musee de la Photographie in Belgium, and a 2019 retrospective exhibition at Fotografia Europea in Italy. He has two John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships (1976 and 1979), two National Endowment for the Arts Individual Photography Fellowships, the International Center for Photography Infinity Award for Lifetime Fine Art Photography, and was the recipient of the Lucie Award for Documentary Photography in 2017 and 2015.