An amateur photographer with a passion for documenting gay life in New York, Leonard Fink (1930–1992) worked in complete obscurity for more than 25 years, amassing an extraordinary archive of work now being digitised by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York.
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Fink’s photographs capture the early years of the gay liberation movement as a new generation came of age, taking to the streets to celebrate newly won freedoms to live and love openly. His vibrant scenes of parades, bars, and cruising at New York’s infamous West Side Piers offer an intimate slice of life as seen by an insider who was also extremely reclusive.
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An attorney for the New York Transit Authority, Fink was a self-taught photographer who never exhibited or published his work while he as alive. He worked in his small apartment on West 92 Street, living frugally to afford the pricey cost of photographic supplies and develop his photographs in a homemade darkroom.
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