HANK O’NEAL

Hank O’Neal enjoys a diversified career in the arts and public service. He joined the Central Intelligence Agency upon graduation from university in 1963 and resigned from that organization in 1976. He formed his first record company in 1970, built his first recording studio and produced his first concerts (jazz and blues) in 1972, published his first book and had his first show of photographs in 1973, and worked on his first film project in 1974. It is now some years and thousands of recordings, concerts, books, films and photographs later and he continues his activities in all these fields.

His first photographs were taken as a teenager and young man but he didn’t begin to pursue photography seriously until 1969 when he acquired a professional camera and began documenting recording sessions and jazz concerts he was producing. Long before Berenice Abbott admonished him to always have a project, he undertook his first, in rural East Texas during the years 1970-1973. These photographs led to his first exhibition in September 1973, at The Open Mind Gallery in New York City.

In the 1970s he became friendly and associated with a diverse group of photographers, notably Walker Evans, Andre Kertesz and most importantly, Berenice Abbott, with whom he worked for the last 19 years of her life.

Between the years 1970 and 1999 in addition to undertaking many photographic projects, including his series of Shadowman photographs in 1982, documenting the public art of Richard Hambleton, he also published numerous books on photography. In 1999, at the urging of Evelyn Daitz, the gallery director, he had a major retrospective of his work to that point at The Witkin Gallery.

The focus of his activities has been more directed towards photography since that time, and he has had many exhibitions in the past decade. In 2003 his photographic career was summarized in a major profile in The New York Times.   In September 2009, eleven of his Shadowman photographs were selected by Andy Valmorbida and Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld to be included in their groundbreaking exhibition Richard Hambleton New York.