Sensual Empathy. Larry Fink. May 24 – August 31, 2025. Center for Photography, Woodstock – USA.

Larry Fink was one of the last of the great humanist photographers. He described his characteristic black-and-white photographs that documented both America’s elite and working class over six decades as “political, not polemical.”

Born in Brooklyn, Fink (1941-2023) was introduced to photography by his father and won his first contest at fourteen. He studied briefly at The New School, where he was mentored by photographer Lisette Model. Immersed in New York’s Beat scene, Fink photographed poets, painters, and musicians, deepening his love for jazz. Fink’s penchant for flash resulted in his signature high-contrast photographs, capturing moments of spectacle both tender and dramatic. In the early 1970s, he turned his lens on Manhattan’s nightlife—Studio 54, debutante balls—while also documenting rural life in Pennsylvania. This dual perspective culminated in Social Graces, exhibited at MoMA in 1979 and published by Aperture in 1984, showcasing his empathy for his subjects and his signature flash-lit style.

Larry Fink: Sensual Empathy, curated by distinguished writer Lucy Sante, celebrates Fink’s remarkable instinct for capturing the spirit of a given social moment. He famously pointed his lens on all levels of society, from New York and Hollywood gala revellers to the at-home partying of working class, rural Americans; from civil rights demonstrations to 1960s jazz giants. As Sante notes, “All of those circumstances engaged his rapid eye, his almost painterly chiaroscuro, and his identification with the human beings he photographed, good, bad, or ugly.” The exhibition includes works from Fink’s seminal series Social Graces as well as some of his civil rights and jazz imagery. Accenting the photographs are selected poems and musings by Fink over the years.