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Nat Finkelstein
1933 – 2009

We mourn the death of internationally renowned photographer NAT FINKELSTEIN, who passed peacefully at his home in Upstate New York on Friday October 2, 2009. He was 76.

Born in Coney Island, Brooklyn in 1933, Nat Finkelstein was a graduate of Stuyvesant High School and attended Brooklyn College. He studied photography and design under Alexey Brodovitch, the legendary art director of Harper's Bazaar. Throughout the 1960s, Finkelstein worked as a photojournalist for the PIX and Black Star photo agencies, reporting primarily on emergent subcultures and the civil rights movement. In 1964, Finkelstein entered Andy Warhol's Factory as a journalist and remained for three years. His photographs from this period are now regarded as some of the most iconic of the time.

Finkelstein abruptly retired from photography in 1969, when a federal warrant was issued for his arrest, due to the incendiary nature of his civil rights activity. He left the United States, and lived as a fugitive for fifteen years, following the Silk Road through the Middle East. During this time, all charges against Finkelstein were dismissed, and he returned to New York City in 1982.

Nat Finkelstein resumed his photographic career, and has since exhibited his work worldwide. While best known for his images of Warhol's Factory, Finkelstein's documented stories as wide ranging as civil rights protests for Life Magazine in the 1960s to the “club kid” scene of the 1990s. His monographs include The Andy Warhol Index (with Warhol, 1968), Girlfriends (1991), Merry Monsters (1993), Andy Warhol: The Factory Years (2000) and Edie Factory Girl (2006).

Finkelstein's photographs are in the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; The Victoria & Albert Museum, London; The Ludwig Museum, Cologne; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the Smithsonian Institute, National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC, among many other public and private collections. His work can be seen in upcoming exhibitions, including “Who Shot Rock” at the Brooklyn Museum this Fall, and a retrospective at Idea Generation, London in December 2009.

Nat Finkelstein is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, and brother, Howard.

Photographer's Statement:

Al Aronowitz was a friend of mine.