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"Harold Feinstein is a true photographer’s photographer and one of the most seriously under-recognized senior figures in U.S. photography.” 1
A. D. Coleman: Celebrated American photography critic and author
Harold Feinstein was born in Coney Island, New York, in 1931. He began photographing in 1946 at the age of 15 and joined the Photo League at 17. By the time Feinstein was 19, Edward Steichen of the Museum of Modern Art had purchased Feinstein photographs for the museum’s permanent collection. Former New York Times photography critic, A. D. Coleman notes that Feinstein “was considered by the photo world as something of a child prodigy.”2 His work helped define what became known as the “New York School” of photography. In 1957, when Feinstein was only 26, New York Times photocritic Jacob Deschin declared Feinstein’s work “the new pictorialism, the refinement of the craft as technically perfected language.”3 In 1958, H. M. Kinzer, editor of Photography Annual, added: “At the age of 26, Harold Feinstein has reached the point in his photographic career when the word ‘master’ is being applied to his prints by some ordinarily cautious critics.”4
In the 50’s, his Photo League friend Arnold Newman introduced Feinstein to W. Eugene Smith. The two worked closely together for many years and Feinstein did the lay-out for Smith’s vast Pittsburgh Essay.
Feinstein was part of the artistic and intellectual ferment of Greenwich Village in the 1950’s and 60’s. He was close to the jazz scene and designed covers for Blue Note Records. 5 In 1954, at the age of 23, he moved 821 Sixth Avenue, which later became known as “the jazz loft.”6 Many of the jazz greats such as Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, and Teddy Charles came to study composition with Hall Overton. Feinstein later turned the loft over to W. Eugene Smith whose legendary tapes of jazz sessions were recently celebrated in a book and exhibition, The Jazz Loft Project (2010).
Feinstein’s photography was chosen to help launch the first issue of the avante garde literary magazine Evergreen Review, which featured Jean-Paul Sartre and debuted works of Samuel Beckett. His close friend David Dellinger, who was one of the most influential pacifists of the 20th century, asked Feinstein to be the primary photographer for Liberation magazine in the 50’s and 60’s.
In addition to his reputation as a photographer, Feinstein was one of the few teachers of photography in the 50’s and 60’s. Coleman calls him “one of a small handful of master teachers whose legendary private workshops and art-institute classes…proved instrumental in shaping the vision of hundreds of aspiring photographers.”7 The majority of his workshops were held in his own studio, though he also taught at The Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, The Philadelphia Museum School, The School for Visual Arts in NYC, the Maryland Institute of Art, and other universities. Feinstein himself, was fundamentally self-taught and never graduated from high school. His teaching style urged experimentation and emphasized seeing over technique. It is best captured by his well-known statement, “When your mouth drops open, click the shutter.” Even though as a teacher he under-emphasized technique, the editors of Modern Photography, and later Popular Photography utilized his work frequently to showcase technique and asked him to contribute his own articles explaining darkroom technique, composition, and printmaking.
In 1958, at the age of 27, Feinstein left the New York art scene and did not return again until 1977, when he was 50 years old. He lived and taught in Philadelphia, rural New Jersey, and Vermont while raising his two children Robin and Gjon. Reflecting on this period of his life, Feinstein said, “I did not make a conscious decision to walk away from the mainstream. I just followed my life and photography elsewhere, and was not focused on publications and shows.”8
Feinstein’s six-decade photography career encompasses styles from small camera documentary black and white work to large format digital color. His photographs have been widely exhibited and are represented in the permanent collections of major museums including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Photographic Arts, The Jewish Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, The Center for Creative Photography, and the Museum for the City of New York. His portfolios, photo essays, and articles have been published in major periodicals around the world including, LIFE, Aperture, Black & White, Popular Photography, O Magazine, Art Business Today, US Camera, Photo Electronic Imaging, Professional Photographer, and Audubon. LIFE published numerous Feinstein photo essays and featured his work in a short film entitled "Photographers for LIFE".
His black and white work includes the largest collection of photographs of Coney Island by any photographer. As a Coney Islander by birth, Feinstein began photographing his favorite place in 1946, when he was 15 and continued until 2000. This body of work has been hailed as a “modern day classic,”9 and celebrated by ABC’s Nightline feature story on Coney Island in 1995.
Other portfolios include photographs of the Korean War taken while Feinstein was a draftee in 1951 and continuing through his tour of duty there, street photography spanning 1946-1990, and a broad array of portraits, nudes, still-lifes, and landscapes.
He first began exploring color in the mid 80’s, shooting 35mm photographs of flowers and seashell against the sky. This resulted in a large archive of imagery produced as both cibachrome and dye transfer prints. Images from this collection were published in LIFE magazine and numerous other publications. In addition, he pioneered the use of a kaleidoscopic lens, producing a portfolio of abstract renderings of New York City architecture, published by LIFE magazine and exhibited at the Municipal Art Society of New York. He drew inspiration for this series from Louis Kahn and Frank Lloyd Wright who asked Feinstein to photograph their work. Also in color, he produced an extensive photo essay of Rodin’s small-scale sculpture in tribute to his lifelong affinity to the master.
In 1998, Feinstein broke new ground as one of the first photographers to utilize a scanner as a camera (a technique now termed scanography). His first book of images using this technique, One Hundred Flowers (2000) is in its third edition and was followed by six other books of large format color digital imagery published by Little, Brown and Company. His seminal work in this arena earned him the Computerworld Smithsonian Award as a pioneer in digital photography in 2000. The publishing of his digital color imagery created a phenomenon in popular culture captured in this statement in England’s The Independent newspaper: “In the realm of photography, Feinstein is what Beckham is to football or J.K. Rowling is to books.”10 A subsequent article in Art Business Today, speculated that one of Feinstein’s images of a white rose “is probably the world’s best-selling image.” 11
In 2011, Feinstein celebrates his 80th birthday and 65 years as a photographer. He lives in Merrimac, Massachusetts with his wife, Judith Thompson, his dog, Muffin, and his cat, Linden.
1A.D. Coleman, “Seeing the life in which we live: the photographs of Harold Feinstein”, archived at http://nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/?page_id=3294, 2010, p. 1.
3Jacob Deschin, “Feinstein’s new show at Limelight”, The New York Times, November 2, 1958.
4H.M. Kinzer, “The Intimate Camera of Harold Feinstein,” Photography Annual, (Chicago: Ziff-Davis Publishing Co.), p. 162.
5http://www.birkajazz.com/archive/blueNote1500.htm
6In 1957, author Anais Nin, recorded in her diary an evening at Feinstein’s jazz loft apartment.
7A.D. Coleman, “Engendered is the flower: The floral photographs of Harold Feinstein”, One Hundred Flowers, (New York: Bulfinch Press), 2000, p. 15.
8Vita Mietziti, “The Reemergence of a Master”, unpublished manuscript, 1986.
9Mark Edward Harris, “Miracle of Flowers” PC Photo, July/August 2001, p. 37.
10David Usburne, “Any Other Name: The Man Behind The Lens Hadn't Even Realized He Was The Creator Of A Global Hit”, The Independent, October 18, 2005, P. 21-22.
11Annabelle Ruston, “The Beauty in the Familiar”, Art Business Today, April 2005, pp. 23-25.
