Rags and riches: Larry Fink’s photos lay bare 1970s America’s wealth gap
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Rags and Riches: Evocative photographs exposing the gap between upper class Manhattan and working class 1970s America.
- A new series of black-and-white photographs by photographer Larry Fink exposes the contrast between wealth and poverty in 1970s America.
- Fink divided his time between upper-class Manhattan and Martins Creek, Pennsylvania, where he photographed the working-class Sabtine family.
- Here Dailymail.com offers a unique insight into Fink’s latest exhibition at the Robert Mann Gallery In New York
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Photographer Larry Fink attended many socialite parties in 1970s Manhattan, frequently rubbing shoulders with the city’s upper class.
To calm down, he always had several gin and tonics at the bar first.
The holidays were a world away from Fink’s afterlife, which consisted of working and living on a farm in Martins Creek, Pennsylvania.
In his moving series Social Graces, the acclaimed photographer, now 81, lays bare the contrast between these two worlds and offers an insightful look at extreme wealth and extreme poverty in 1970s America.
Dailymail.com has obtained several of the famous shots, which are part of the Larry Fink exhibit being exhibited in the Robert Mann Gallery in New York until March 4.
Many images focus on the working-class Sabatine family that Fink met at Martins Creek.
The photographer would capture their everyday moments, such as birthday parties and graduations, before hopping in his truck and driving for hours to New York City dances and clubbing at his famed Studio 54 venue.
Larry Fink’s Social Graces explores the difference between Upper Crust Manhattan and the working-class Sabatine family in Pennsylvania. A man and a woman dance together at an English Speaking Union event in December 1975
Fink would photograph everyday moments in the life of the Sabatine family. This image shows his daughter Oslin’s graduation party in June 1977.
The series became a critical success, with a 2001 New York Times review stating that it “does one of the things direct photography does best: it provides unbearably intimate glimpses of real people and their all-too-fallible human lives.”
The exhibit at the Robert Mann Gallery, which runs through March 4, also includes images from Fink’s other series, Boxing and Loggers.
Born in Brooklyn in 1941, the photographer was privately tutored and mentored by photographer Lisette Model.
He is known for his distinctive style, using a handheld flash separate from his camera.
His work has been published in Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, W, and GQ Magazine, among others, and his work has been exhibited everywhere from the Museum of Modern Art to the Whitney Museum to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. .
Boat Train to Paris: Fink’s Social Graces series was influenced by his mother, whom he contradictorily described as a bourgeois and Marxist woman.
Sabatine Matriarch Jean features heavily in the series. Pictured presenting a cake to his son Pat on his eighth birthday in April 1977.
Two girls have drinks at the Second Hungarian Ball in New York City. The images are now on display at the Robert Mann Gallery.
Little Brown Jug, California, August 1997. Fink once said of his work: ‘I don’t distort. I comment honestly and take pictures of my perceptions.’
Jean Sabatine photographed at Christmas 1983. The image is part of Fink’s Social Grace, which was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1979.
Socialites dance together at the famous Studio 54 in New York
Baby Molly appears in Martin’s Creek in 1983. Fink is famous for his distinctive style, using a handheld flash separate from his camera.
Count and Kelly appear in Martins Creek, Pennsylvania, in June 1977.
A man in overalls at Camp Grisdale Shelton, Washington, July 1980
A photo from Oslin Sabatine’s prom shows a woman in a onesie laughing and joking in the Creek.
The Larry Fink exhibit at the Robert Mann Gallery also features images from Fink’s Boxing series. Blue Horizon, Philadelphia, December 1994
Champs Gym, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 1988. Image is part of Fink’s Boxing series.