18 Facts About Nat Finkelstein

Nathan Louis "Nat" Finkelstein was an American photographer and photojournalist.

In 1964, Nat Finkelstein entered Andy Warhol's Factory as a photojournalist and remained for three years; Nat Finkelstein's photographs from this period are now regarded as some of the most iconic of the time.

Nat Finkelstein was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Coney Island, where his father worked as a cab driver.

Nat Finkelstein graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1950 and in 1952 he enrolled in Brooklyn College, where he first became interested in photography through the inspiration that he found in great photographers such as Edward Steichen.

Nat Finkelstein was signed by the PIX and Black Star agencies through which he was able to meet and spend time with established photographers Robert Capa, Eugene Smith, and Andreas Feininger.

Nat Finkelstein specialized in chronicling the various subcultures of the United States at the time, an interest that led him to Harlem's burgeoning jazz and soul scenes, Warhol's factory, and later to cover the antiwar rallies and emerging counterculture.

In September 1962 Nat Finkelstein was commissioned by Pageant magazine to do an article on the emerging Pop Art movement.

Two years later, while attending a party at the Factory, Nat Finkelstein met Warhol, who had seen his photographs of Oldenburg's "happening" in Pageant.

Nat Finkelstein offered his services as a photographer to the artist, and for the next three years he was a constant presence at the Factory.

Nat Finkelstein fled the United States, claiming he was worried that the government might try to assassinate him.

Nat Finkelstein spent the next decade as a fugitive, following the Silk Road through the Middle East and selling hashish to support himself.

Nat Finkelstein returned to the United States in 1982 when he became aware that charges against him had been dropped.

Nat Finkelstein became involved in the New York punk music scene, managing bands such as Khmer Rouge, whose members he used as photographic subjects.

Nat Finkelstein made frequent visits to Bolivia to nourish an addiction to cocaine.

Nat Finkelstein shot a generation of New York club kids, a group that he recorded in his 1993 book Merry Monsters.

Nat Finkelstein now found himself in constant demand, he had over seventy-five solo and group shows at museums and galleries worldwide.

Nat Finkelstein died of complications from pneumonia and emphysema at his home in Shandaken, New York on October 2,2009.

Nat Finkelstein's photographs are in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, and The Andy Warhol Foundation, New York; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent; Ludwig Museum, Cologne; and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, among many other public and private collections.