Pat Sabatine's Eighth Birthday Party, Martins Creek, Pennsylvania
April 1977
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 35.4 × 35.8 cm (13 15/16 × 14 1/8 in.) sheet: 50.8 × 40.64 cm (20 × 16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Tony Podesta Collection, Washington, DC
Accession Number
2017.160.29
Art Historical Context
Step into the lively chaos of rural America with Larry Fink's *Pat Sabatine's Eighth Birthday, Martins Creek, Pennsylvania (April 1977), a gelatin silver print that captures the unfiltered joy and disorder of a child's celebration. Fink, a master of candid black-and-white photography, freezes a moment amid cake, balloons, and exuberant kids in this small Pennsylvania town, evoking the raw energy of family gatherings. Printed in the classic gelatin silver process—prized for its deep blacks, crisp details, and luminous tones—this 35.4 × 35.8 cm image exemplifies mid-20th-century documentary pho...
About the Artist
Larry Fink
Larry Fink (1941–2023) was a pioneering American photographer renowned for his raw, black-and-white images that pierced the veneers of social gatherings, revealing the human condition across class divides. Born Laurence Bruce Fink on March 11, 1941, in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family—his father Bernard a lawyer, his mother Sylvia an anti-nuclear activist—he grew up in a politically charged ...