'Coming of Age in America'

When Joseph Szabo first came to teach art classes at Malverne High School in 1972, he was 28 — only a decade older than some of his students. Still, the Ohio native had difficulty relating to them. “He found them disengaged and disinterested,” according to Lisa Chalif, curator of the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, where Szabo’s photography is currently on exhibit.

Determined to bridge the gap between teacher and pupils, Szabo, who moved to New York in the 1960s to study at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, eventually figured out how to connect with his students: through a camera lens. According to Chalif, Szabo, who is now 68, used the “neutral eye of a documentary photographer,” snapping pictures of his students in the classroom or out on the football field and around school grounds.

“[He] depicted his subjects as they were,” Chalif said, “preening and posing, showing off and goofing around, kissing, smoking — without judgment.”

What emerged from his photographs was a “dignified, compassionate and tender view of teenage life rarely seen by adults,” Chalif said. “Although Szabo’s portrait of adolescence in America is specific to suburban Long Island in the 1970s and ’80s, the images are universal and timeless.” And that was why Heckscher wanted to showcase them.

Szabo’s work took on a life of its own — he put together a book in 1978 called “Almost Grown,” which was later remade and expanded in 2003 as “Teenage” — but it also accomplished its purpose. “I believe and hope we learned about trust and friendship,” Szabo said when asked what he thought his students took away from the experience of being photographed. They grew to like their teacher, who introduced photography classes to the district and headed the photography club, and eventually they began to invite him to their homes and parties.

“He made a very strong bond with some of the students,” Chalif said, noting that Szabo is still close to many former students, a number of whom attended the Jan. 14 opening of his exhibit, “Coming of Age in America: The Photography of Joseph Szabo.” A Heckscher news release describes the photos featured there as “captur[ing] the bravado and vulnerability, the joy and exuberance, the angst and fear, and the blossoming self-confidence and emerging sexuality of those complex years at the cusp of adulthood.”

Szabo’s chronicling of teenage life comprises several distinct series — adolescents and students, Rolling Stones fans, summers at Jones Beach and hometown images, which all share a common aesthetic. Many of the photos feature Szabo’s Malverne High students.

“What strikes us first in the photographs … is a quiet shock of recognition,” Chalif wrote in an essay introducing the exhibit. “His poignant images of the daily rituals of teenage life present a nostalgic portrait of those tumultuous years between childhood and adulthood. We remember our own high school years, first loves, classic rock, hanging out. We see ourselves in his photographs.”

Szabo taught at the high school for nearly three decades, leaving in 1999. He also taught at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan for more than 20 years. His work is in the collections of numerous institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and Yale University. The Heckscher Museum will display Szabo’s work until March 25.