Larry Clark

Larry Clark1 is an American photographer and filmmaker. Born in Tulsa, he worked in his family’s commercial photographic portrait business before studying photography with Walter Sheffer at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 1961 to 1963. He served in the military during the Vietnam War and has been a freelance photographer based in New York since 1966. During the 60s, Clark documented the culture of drug use and illicit activity of his friends in Tulsa, and his photographs from those years were published as Tulsa (1971). Considered shocking for its graphic portrayal of the intimate details of its subjects’ risky lives, the book launched Clark’s career. After Tulsa, he produced Teenage Lust (1983), a series of photographs depicting adolescent sexuality, Larry Clark (1992), and The Perfect Childhood (1993). His work has been included in group and solo exhibitions since the early 70s, and he was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Photographers’ Fellowship in 1973 and a Creative Arts Public Service photographers’ grant in 1980. Clark has also produced films; recently Marfa Girl (2012), but his better known films are Kids (1994), based on his experiences with New York City teenagers and their culture of drugs, alcohol, and sex, and Another Day in Paradise (1999).

• 1. This biographical blurb was adapted from HANDY et al. 1999. Reflections in a Glass Eye. Works from the International Center of Photography Collection. New York: Bulfinch Press in association with the International Center of Photography, p. 211-212. It is available on the website of the International Center of Photography.