Hank O’Neal....

As a child in Texas, Hank O’Neal first experienced photography when he watched his father print his World War II photographs and family portraits in a kitchen darkroom. A few years later, in 1952, he won a Brownie Hawkeye in a drawing at a small grocery store and began taking and processing his own pictures. Child in Spacesuit, 1953, is a product of those times.

Twenty years later, in 1973, O’Neal had a better camera, his first book, The Eddie Condon Scrapbook of Jazz, was published, and he had his first modest photography show, Winona, Texas, at The Open Mind Gallery, in New York City. Just the year before, in 1972, O’Neal met Berenice Abbott and began a working relationship with her that lasted nineteen years. It was Abbott who convinced him of the merits of a large format view camera, suggesting that if he’d buy one, she’d teach him how to work it. He did and she did, in an abbreviated thirty-minute session.

Abbott advised O’Neal, “Don’t take photographs willy-nilly, you have to have a project.” About the same time, Bert Stern suggested there was equal merit in medium format cameras and gave O’Neal a spare Rolleiflex to prove the point. Now, equipped with a Leica, Nikon, Rolleiflex, and Deardorff, O’Neal paid attention to the wisdom of Abbott and others, and for the next three decades accumulated a large body of work.

Many of O’Neal’s photographs are often work-related, portraits for LP jackets and CD booklets, documenting recording sessions, illustrating books or producing booklets for his music festivals. Since 1971, he has produced over 200 LPs or CDs for his companies, Chiaroscuro Records and Hammond Music Enterprises. Since 1983, he and his partner, Shelley Shier have produced over one hundred music festivals, through their New York City-based production company, HOSS, Inc.

O’Neal has also published a number of books and monographs, including the now classic work on the Farm Security Administration, A Vision Shared – A Portrait of America and Its People 1935 – 1943 and the landmark study of his friend, Berenice Abbott – American Photographer. His own photographs appeared in a variety of books and publications, most recently in 1997 in the award-winning book, The Ghosts of Harlem and Hank O’Neal Portraits 1971 – 2000. In 2009 Vanderbilt University Press published an English Language edition of The Ghosts Of Harlem and in 2008 Steidl issued Berenice Abbott, the ultimate statement regarding the work of this noted American photographer.


Cab Calloway In addition to the musical and photographic interests, O’Neal’s other activities are as varied as the subject matter of his photographs. He received a BA from Syracuse University in 1962, and was well on his way to an MA, when, in 1963, he was snared by the Central Intelligence Agency, with whom he was associated until 1976. While he was with this organization, he also served on active duty in the US Army, rising to the rank of Captain.

O’Neal came to New York City from Washington, D.C. in 1967 and still resides in Greenwich Village. He joined the faculty of The New School University in 1970 and remains affiliated with the school as as a member of the Board of Advisors of the Jazz and Contemporary Music Program. During the 1970s, he was associated with the modern dance company, Choreographer’s Theater, for whom he not only created sound and visual collages, but also, on occasion, danced. In the same decade, he built and operated two recording studios in Greenwich Village. During the years 1983 through 1995, he was an advisor to the Justice Department and is currently on the Board of Directors of various arts organizations, galleries and corporations, most prominently the Jazz Foundation of America/Jazz Musician’s Emergency Fund, The Jazz Gallery and the National Jazz Museum In Harlem.
For more information about the artist, visit: http://www.hankonealphoto.com/