Anthony Friedkin

In 2014, The Gay Essay, which documents Californian gay culture during the late 1960s and early 1970s, was featured in San Francisco's deYoung Museum.

From June 2014 to January 2015, San Francisco's DeYoung Museum exhibited the 75 prints to coincide with the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The exhibit also included materials from the artist's archive that convey the historical context of the work.

In 2004, the work was displayed at the fine art gallery of Los Angeles Harbor College. California Prisons includes sensitive portrait shots of incarcerated teenagers, as well as the many typical representations of machismo and gang affiliated men.

In 1978, Friedkin began work on a series of photographs showing the behind-the-scenes realities of the cinema industry. These photographs challenge viewers to step back from the illusion of real life that Hollywood movies create, instead showing the artifice and business behind the illusion. In a 2014 interview, Friedkin indicated this work is still in progress. In 1985, a subset of costume photography from the essay was displayed at the Nicola gallery in Los Angeles. In 1986, The Hollywood Essay was featured at the Min Gallery in Tokyo, Japan.

He received a National Endowment of the Arts grant in 1977 and was given a special commendation by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley for his contribution to Fine Art Photography in 1980.

He made the twenty black-and-white photographs of his Wave Portfolio between 1977 and 2006, printing them in his own darkroom in Santa Monica. They show waves at Zuma Beach, Venice Beach, Hermosa Beach, La Jolla, Carmel, and Santa Monica.

In 1975, he started working as a still photographer for the film industry. For a time, he worked as a photojournalist working as a stringer for Magnum Photos in Los Angeles. During his career he taught photography at both UCLA and California Institute of the Arts.

In 1969, when Friedkin was 19, he began to chronicle gay life in Los Angeles and San Francisco, hoping to increase its visibility and gain a better understanding of gay culture there. The photo essay was captured in the years of sexual revolution, around the time of the Stonewall riots. While taking the portraits in informal settings such as hotels and bars, he often developed close relationships with his subjects. In 2014, Friedkin released The Gay Essay, a book containing 75 portraits from the series, published by Yale University Press. The publisher announced that the book is intended to be the first of several books containing photos from the series.

In 1968-99, he attended Santa Monica City College as a liberal arts major. During 1969-1970, he moved on to the Art Center College of Design with a concentration in photography. During 1971-1972, he attended the University of California, Los Angeles as a photography major. In 1971, he attended the Royal College of Art as a visiting student. In 1972, he attended an Aperion Workshop in Millerton, New York.

Anthony Friedkin (born 1949) is an American photographer whose works have chronicled California's landscapes, cities and people. His topics include phenomena such as surf culture, prisons, cinema, and gay culture. Friedkin’s photographs have been exhibited in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum. His photographs are included in major Museum collections: New York's Museum of Modern Art, The J. Paul Getty Museum and others. He is represented in numerous private collections as well. His pictures have been published in Japan, Russia, Europe, and many Fine Art magazines in America.

Friedkin was born in Los Angeles, California in 1949. At age 8, he started taking photographs, and by the age of 11, he was developing photos in a darkroom.