Slavin, Neal 1941-

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SLAVIN, Neal 1941-

PERSONAL: Born August 19, 1941, in Brooklyn, NY; Education: Cooper Union, New York, NY, B.F.A., 1963; studied Renaissance painting and sculpture, Lincoln College, Oxford University, England, 1961.

ADDRESSES: Home—62 Greene Street, New York, NY 10012. Agent—Barbara von Schreiber, 315 Central Park West, New York, NY 10025.

CAREER: Photographer, educator, and film director. Freelance photographer and graphic artist since 1963; Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY, instructor of photography, 1970-74; Queen's College, instructor, 1972; Cooper Union, instructor, 1972-74; School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, instructor, 1973. Director of the motion picture Focus (Paramount Classics), 2001. Exhibitions: Works included in permanent collections at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD. Solo exhibitions include Underground Gallery, New York, 1967, Focus Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1972; Akron Art Institute, Akron, OH, 1980; and National Museum of Photography, Bradford, Yorkshire, England, 1986. Group exhibitions include Rooms, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1976; Aspects of the '70s, DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA, 1980; and The History of Color Photography, at Photokina '86, Cologne, Germany. Military service: United States Army Reserve, 1963-64.

AWARDS, HONORS: Fulbright Photography fellowship, 1968; National Endowment for the Arts grants, 1972, 1976; Creative Artists Public Service Award, 1977.

WRITINGS:

Portugal, afterword by Mary McCarthy, Lustrom Press (New York, NY), 1971.

When Two or More Are Gathered Together, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1976.

(Illustrator, with Charles Mikolaycak) Earlene Long, Johnny's Egg, Addison-Wesley (Reading, MA), 1980.

Britons, Aperture (New York, NY), 1986.

SIDELIGHTS: New York-based photographer and film director Neal Slavin produces volumes of commercial photography, creating images for book jackets and magazine covers, completing photo essays appearing in such major magazines as New York and Geo, and directing television commercials.

He has also undertaken his own photography projects, including Portugal (1971), a chronicle of a people under dictatorship, which share common sociological themes but display a variety of technical skills.

He has published several books of his photos. Portugal, for which Slavin received the first-ever Fulbright grant for photography in 1968, is a study in black- and-white film, using a 35-millimeter camera. A Contemporary Photographers writer said, "The resulting sequence of images, a revealing and highly personal interpretation of his subject, showed Slavin to be adept at the small-camera documentary mode as defined by Cartier-Bresson and redefined by Robert Frank."

When Two or More Are Gathered Together is a lengthy series of formal, full-color portraits of American social and business groups. Slavin set out to demonstrate how members of a group signal their shared identity. Because uniforms and accessories are often important to group allegiance, Slavin wanted to work with color film and emphasize physical presentation.

In Britons, a collection of group portraits, Slavin captures British club members, drinking buddies, coworkers, and choirs. He used a large Polaroid camera to photograph his subjects, including members of the Distressed Gentlefolks Aid Association and the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.

In 1991, Slavin launched production company Slavin/Schaffer Films, with partner Perry Schaffer. In 1997, Slavin bought out Schaffer and renamed his one-director company Carros Pictures. Under the Carros name, Slavin directed several Procter & Gamble Sunny Delight beverage spots and others. In an interview published in Shoot, Slavin explained, "I had reached the point in life where things were going well, but I was not having fun. We had 10 people . . . and I went to bed worrying about running a company instead of running a project."

Slavin directed his first motion picture, Focus, based on the 1945 novel by Arthur Miller. Interested in film directing for several decades before he tried his hand at it, Slavin had dreamed of bringing to life Miller's novel upon first reading it as an art student at Cooper Union in New York City. He read it fifteen times before undertaking the directing project.

The movie, starring William H. Macy and Laura Dern, tells of Lawrence Newman, a weak Everyman, whose new, horn-rimmed glasses cause people to think him Jewish and react harshly. He lives with his sick mother. Focus, which tracks the effects of anti-Semitism, the ruthless power of perception, and one humble man's search for truth and compassion, is set in New York during World War II.

Dennis Harvey wrote in Variety, "Shot in Toronto, [Focus] does an OK job evoking the period on modest means." Daniel Egan observed in Film Journal International, "Although presented with sympathy and taste, these are themes which inevitably carried more weight in the past....At best, Focus will win a certain amount of respectful reviews and almost no viewers."

"Anti-Semitism was still a taboo subject then," Slavin told Gary Arnold in a Washington Times interview and discussion of Miller's novel. "Even the Jews didn't want to talk about it. As the years went on, the book's metaphor encompassed other kinds of racism, prejudice and hatred. I was struck with it relevancy to the civil rights movement during my college period. Now, so soon after the (September, 2001) terrorist attacks, it becomes even more part and parcel of the realities we face."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Photographers, third edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

Hard af Segerstad, Ulf, Sune Jonsson, and Ake Sidwall, Tusen och en bild (exhibition catalogue), Moderna Museet/Fotografiska museet (Stockholm, Sweden), 1978.

Honnef, Klaus, and Evelyn Weiss, Documenta 6, Band 2 (exhibition catalogue), [Kassel, Germany], 1977.

Sammlung Gruber: Photographie des 20. Jahrhunderts (exhibition catalogue), City of Cologne (Cologne, Germany), 1984.

Weiermair, Peter, Photographie als Kunst 1879-1979/Kunst als Photographie 1949-79 (exhibition catalogue), two volumes, Allerheiligenpresse (Innsbruck, Austria), 1979.