Nathan Louis “Nat” Finkelstein (January 16, 1933 – October 2, 2009) was an American photographer and photojournalist. Finkelstein studied photography under Alexey Brodovitch, the art director of Harper’s Bazaar and worked as a photojournalist for the Black Star and PIX photo agencies, reporting primarily on the political developments of various subcultures in New York City in the 1960s. In 1964, Finkelstein entered Andy Warhol’s Factory as a photojournalist and remained for three years; Finkelstein’s photographs from this period are now regarded as some of the most iconic of the time.
Table of Contents
- 1 Early life
- 2 Death
- 3 Career
- 3.1 Andy Warhol and The Factory
- 3.2 Political activist and fugitive
- 3.3 Return to the U.S. and drug addiction
- 3.4 Andy Warhol: The Factory Years, 1964-1967
- 3.5 Nat Finkelstein 1965 Modern Original Vintage Postcard
- 3.6 Nat Finkelstein, 1965 Modern Original Vintage Postcard
- 3.7 Andy Warhol's Index (book)
- 3.8 Nat Finkelstein 1965 Modern Original Vintage Postcard
- 3.9 Nat Finkelstein, 1965 Modern Original Vintage Postcard
- 3.10 Andy Warhol "Oh This Is Fabulous" The Silver Age At The Factory 1964-67
- 3.11 Girlfriends: Postwarholian Images
- 3.12 'Andy Warhol: The Factory Years, 1964-67' by Nat Finkelstein (1989-08-01)
- 3.13 Welcome to the Silver Factory: The Birth of the Pop Art Era (Andy Warhol's Factory People)
Early life
Nat Finkelstein was born in Brooklyn and grew going on in Coney Island, where his father worked as a cab driver. Finkelstein graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1950 and in 1952 he enrolled in Brooklyn College, where he first became interested in photography through the inspiration that he found in good photographers such as Edward Steichen. It was along with here that developed his radical political tendencies, to the extent that he was expelled during his answer semester after he threw a filing cabinet through a window to to-do censorship of a campus publication.
Death
Finkelstein died of complications from pneumonia and emphysema at his home in Shandaken, New York upon October 2, 2009. He was 76. His first four marriages done in divorce. In adjunct to his wife, Elizabeth, he is survived by a brother, Howard. At the grow old of his death, he was close completing a memoir entitled The Fourteen-Ounce Pound.
Career
After his expulsion, he managed to Get an internship similar to the art director of Harper’s Bazaar, Alexey Brodovitch (who famously brought Cocteau, Chagall, and Man Ray to illustrate the magazine). Brodovitch took a liking to the feisty guy from Brooklyn and allowed him to assist on fashion shoots. Fashion journalism led to photojournalism for Sport’s Illustrated, covering activities like bridge tournaments, dog shows, chess, and fencing matches.
Finkelstein was signed by the PIX and Black Star agencies (the latter supplied Life magazine when much imagery) through which he was dexterous to meet and spend era with normal photographers Robert Capa, Eugene Smith, and Andreas Feininger. He specialized in chronicling the various subcultures of the United States at the time, an engagement that led him to Harlem’s burgeoning jazz and soul scenes, Warhol’s factory, and later to cover the antiwar rallies and emerging counterculture.
Andy Warhol and The Factory
In September 1962 Finkelstein was commissioned by Pageant magazine to pull off an article on the emerging Pop Art movement. The article was titled “What happens at a Happening?” it covered a Claes Oldenburg “happening” in Greenwich Village and was a crack that would define his future.
Two years later, while attending a party at the Factory, Finkelstein met Warhol, who had seen his photographs of Oldenburg’s “happening” in Pageant. Finkelstein offered his services as a photographer to the artist, and for the next-door three years he was a constant presence at the Factory. His iconic images of the count up subjects such as the Velvet Underground temporary live, Marcel Duchamp, Bob Dylan, Edie Sedgwick, Salvador Dalí, and Allen Ginsberg.
Political activist and fugitive
During his period at the Factory, Finkelstein was also in action with other affairs. A embassy radical, he helped organize civil rights rallies and anti-war worry and then became on the go with the Black Panthers. As a result, in 1969 a warrant was issued for the arrest of Finkelstein in connection with an outdated drug case. He fled the United States, claiming he was anxious that the paperwork might attempt to assassinate him. He spent the next-door decade as a fugitive, following the Silk Road through the Middle East and selling hashish to withhold himself.
Return to the U.S. and drug addiction
Finkelstein returned to the United States in 1982 subsequent to he became au fait that charges next to him had been dropped. He became full of zip in the New York punk music scene, managing bands such as Khmer Rouge (featuring Phil Shoenfelt), whose members he used as photographic subjects. He made frequent visits to Bolivia to nourish an addiction to cocaine.
The death of Warhol in 1987 came as a wake-up call to Finkelstein and by 1989 he had weaned himself off the drugs and reignited his career in photography. His affinity for subcultures remained and in the 1990s he spent time as allowance of the rant scene, first in London, then Amsterdam, and put stirring to to New York. He shot a generation of New York club kids, a society that he recorded in his 1993 book Merry Monsters. Finkelstein now found himself in constant demand, he had higher than seventy-five solo and group shows at museums and galleries worldwide. His images appeared in magazines such as Life, Time, Sport’s Illustrated, Harper’s & Queen, Vogue and The New York Times Magazine.
Last update 2021-08-06