Slavin, Neal

American, b. 1941

BiographyIn the 1970s, Neal Slavin concentrated on capturing the spectrum of American hobby groups, social clubs, professional societies, sports associations, and other gatherings of people. The resulting book, When Two or More are Gathered Together (1976), is a study of the impulse to form and ritualize groups of people around shared activities or interests. The group portrait International Twins Association, Muncie, Indiana offers a humorous look at our society’s fascination with doubling, a concept that has been encouraged and reinforced by our perfection of the technologies of reproduction. More recently, Slavin has turned his attention to directing films, including the 2001 Focus based on an Arthur Miller play.

Neal Slavin works in both large and small formats and is known for his photographs of groups of people. Born in Brooklyn in 1941, Slavin earned a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture in New York (1963). His work is represented in such major collections as the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson; International Center of Photography, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the New York Public Library, Photography Archive. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions.