Harold Feinstein was born in Coney Island in 1931. He began photographing in1946 when he was 15. By the time he was 19, Edward Steichen had purchased his work for the Museum of Modern Art making him the youngest person to be so honored. Before the age of 30 he had become the youngest member of the Photo League, a designer for Blue Note jazz records, one of the original inhabitants of New York’s legendary “Jazz Loft”, a collaborator with W. Eugene Smith, a solo exhibitor at the historic Helen Gee’s Limelight Gallery, and a renowned teacher. When he died in June, 2015 the New York Times declared him “one of the most accomplished recorders of the American experience.”
He is best known for his Coney Island work, which spans six decades and intimately portrays the iconic American playground as a place of on-going exuberance and vitality. Commenting on his one-man show, A Coney Island of the Heart, at the International Center for Photography in 1990, photo critic, A.D. Coleman, remarked: “Here is New York small camera school at its best; humanistic, engaging, almost intrusive… [T]his is the work of a man who loves people, takes unalloyed pleasure in seeing them enjoy themselves, likes to get close to them – and, by rendering their physicality in tactile, nuanced prints, enmeshes the viewer in the sensual, material world his ‘subjects’ occupy.”
While his Coney Island work has been much celebrated, Feinstein's breadth and exposure is far greater. His photographs from the Korean War, taken from the perspective of a draftee, offer an intimate look at the daily life of young conscripts from basic training to the front lines. His archive also includes a large collection of classic street photography, nudes, portraits and still life. The monograph, Harold Feinstein: A Retrospective (Nazraeli, 2012) received a PDN Annual Best Photography Book Award in 2013. In 2011 the Griffin Museum presented him with the Living Legend Award.
Feinstein also devoted over a decade to color photography, both digital and film. In 2000 he received the Smithsonian Computerworld Award for his breakthrough work in scanography, which resulted in seven books published by Little Brown. His book One Hundred Flowers has been reprinted three times.
Feinstein was legendary teacher who influenced several generations of photographers including Mary Ellen Mark, Lou Draper, Ken Heyman, Wendy Watriss, Bob Shamis and Mariette Pathy Allen. He received his first teaching fellowship when he was 29 at the Annenberg School of Communications in Philadelphia and taught private workshops as well for over 50 years. A.D. Coleman called him “a true teaching artist…whose legendary private workshops and art institute classes proved instrumental in shaping the vision of hundreds of aspiring photographers.”
Shortly before he died, a remarkable renaissance of his early work was underway, including exhibitions and career retrospectives in Moscow, Paris, London, Istanbul, Atlanta, Los Angeles and the historic Blue Sky Gallery. A documentary about his life, Last Stop Coney Island: The Life and Photography of Harold Feinstein, premiered at the DOC NYC film festival in November 2018 to a sold-out crowd and is now streaming on the Sundance Channel, BBC Select and SkyArts. A recent Kodakery podcast, The Life and Work of Harold Feinstein with Andy Dunn and Carrie Scott became Kodak's #1 hit on iTunes in early 2020.
His work is owned by museums worldwide including The Museum of Modern Art, The International Center for Photography, The George Eastman House, The Museum of the City of New York, The Jewish Museum and over two dozen other museums.
For more information please visit:
www.haroldfeinstein.com, @haroldfeinstein, YouTubeChannel, Facebook