Larry Fink American, 1941- Laurence B. Fink is a social documentarian who describes himself as "political, but not polemical." Among the photographers who have influenced his work are Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus, and Fink's teacher, Lisette Model. His most recognized subjects, published in the monograph Social Graces (1984), are family celebrations and gatherings of the upper, middle, and lower-middle classes. Fascinated by the rituals of pleasure and leisure, Fink has photographed baptisms, birthdays, weddings, and picnics -- focusing in particular on the Sabatine family, his friends and neighbors in Martins Creek, Pennsylvania. He has also used his camera to explore the sport of boxing, investigating its corruption and violence as intriguing and complex indices of a greater social power structure. Born in New York City, Fink first recognized the transformative power of photography at age 13 when, as a way to make friends, he set out to photograph his Brooklyn school's football team. He was a rebellious teenager whose interests centered on beatnik poetry and photography. After briefly attending college, he became a freelance fashion photographer in New York. Frustrated by the vacuity of commercial work, he began to pursue his own projects, supporting himself through magazine assignments and teaching photography at Parsons School of Design (1968-72), Yale Summer School of Art and Music (1978), Cooper Union (1978-83), Lehigh University (1985-88), and Bard College (1988-present). Fink's photographs have appeared regularly in the New York Times Magazine, Life, and American Photo. He has received many grants and awards, including fellowships from the New York State Council on the Arts (1970, 1974), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1977, 1979), and the National Endowment for the Arts (1978, 1986), a grant from the Seattle Arts Council (1980), and the Pennsylvania Hazlett Memorial Award for Excellence in the Arts (1985). His one-person exhibitions include a retrospective at the American Cultural Embassy, Brussels (1987), and shows at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1979), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1981), and Musée de L'Elysée, Lausanne (1994). Fink lives in Martins Creek. A.W.