Leonard Fink

Leonard Fink (1930–1992) was an American photographer who documented his own LGBT culture in New York City from 1967 to 1992. He photographed the annual Pride Marches beginning with the first in 1970; the West Village's gay bar culture; and in particular the abandoned West Side piers where men cruised and had sexual encounters.

He neither published nor exhibited his work in his lifetime, but posthumously exhibitions have been held in the Schwules Museum in Berlin and at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York City. A book, Leonard Fink: Coming Out, was published on the occasion of the latter exhibition. His work is held in the archive of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City. the West Village's gay bar culture, especially on West Street; and in particular the abandoned West Side Hudson River piers, such as Christopher Street Pier. The rundown piers served as a space for gay men to interact and Fink photographed the cruising and sexual encounters, including his own. He made both candid photographs as well as those where his subjects knew they were being photographed. and around 25,000 negatives.

Publications Leonard Fink: Coming Out: Photographs of gay liberation and the New York waterfront. Biel/Bienne, Switzerland: Clandestin, 2014. Edited by Judith Luks and Thomas Schoenberger. . With a preface by Rich Wandel and an essay by Jonathan Weinberg ("Leonard Fink: making a scene") and by Schoenberger ("The sexualization of place—the piers between ruin and reoccupation"). Text in English and German. Published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Schwules Museum, Berlin.

Exhibitions Leonard Fink Coming Out, Schwules Museum, Berlin, 2014/15 Included hundreds of images "from self-portraits in mirrors to gay bar culture" and Pride marches.