art

The Incidental Art Project

Tom Slaughter’s paintings and prints weren’t his only body of work.

Tom Slaughter Photo: Tom Slaughter
Tom Slaughter Photo: Tom Slaughter

In 1981, just as Soho loft living became legal, Tom Slaughter moved to a building on Broadway near Prince Street. He was 26, and soon — mentored by the curator and critic Henry Geldzahler — he began to find his way in the art world. His bright, Pop-y paintings (of hats, sailboats, piles of books, windows), made with big black brushstrokes, are extremely unprecious, and he made tons of them, sometimes 20 variations on a subject. By 1990, he was living off his art and had a wife and two kids, spending school years in New York and summers in Canada. His elder daughter, Hannah Jocelyn, recalls being dragged to galleries and museums “every Sunday, our family outing, and I obviously wanted to die of humiliation every single time.”

Slaughter stayed in the building even as tenants like the Paul Taylor Dance Company and a dumpy shoe store gave way to Banana Republic. He died there in 2014 of cancer at 59. Through the years, he’d had a side project: shooting Polaroid photos, constantly, of everything that interested him. He photographed his art, his wife (clothed and not), friends’ picnics, movie scenes on TV. His daughters, of course. After he divorced, his girlfriends. Nearly everyone who came by, from intimate friends to UPS guys. En masse, the pictures are an Instagram feed before Instagram. Most went into boxes, but a lot of the visitors’ pictures got tacked to the wall. Gradually they became a constellation view of the downtown scene and Slaughter’s life.

You can visit that world via the new book Tom Slaughter, which reproduces many of the photos alongside hundreds of his artworks. In quite a few cases, the former stand in for the latter. “His organizational system for tracking where his art was sold was nonexistent,” says Nell Jocelyn, his younger daughter. “And when we couldn’t find [a painting] to take a real picture of it, he had a Polaroid picture from like 1992. So we put that in the book.” She’s eager for the buyers to get in touch: “ ‘Oh, I have that one!’ And then,” she hopes, “we’ll ask to borrow it for a show.”

Clockwise from top left: Chuck Slaughter; Alia Hussey and Henry Gardner; Daisy Alvarez; and Demi Moore, Rumer Willis, and Hannah Jocelyn. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Chuck Slaughter; Alia Hussey and Henry Gardner; Daisy Alvarez; and Demi Moore, Rumer Willis, and Hannah Jocelyn. Photo: Tom S... Clockwise from top left: Chuck Slaughter; Alia Hussey and Henry Gardner; Daisy Alvarez; and Demi Moore, Rumer Willis, and Hannah Jocelyn. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Hannah Jocelyn; Hannah’s second-grade class at LREI; John Benjamin Hickey; and Jim Sperling, Ginny Loeb, Josh and Adam, and Hannah Jocelyn. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Hannah Jocelyn; Hannah’s second-grade class at LREI; John Benjamin Hickey; and Jim Sperling, Ginny Loeb, Josh and Adam, and H... Clockwise from top left: Hannah Jocelyn; Hannah’s second-grade class at LREI; John Benjamin Hickey; and Jim Sperling, Ginny Loeb, Josh and Adam, and Hannah Jocelyn. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: JP Russell; Lizzie and Peggy Davis; Gordon Davis; and Nell Jocelyn. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: JP Russell; Lizzie and Peggy Davis; Gordon Davis; and Nell Jocelyn. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Andy Fabo; Ben Halley Jr., Scott Kilgour, and Robert Hughes. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Andy Fabo; Ben Halley Jr., Scott Kilgour, and Robert Hughes. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Dylan John and Emilio Picayo; and Ella Strauss. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Dylan John and Emilio Picayo; and Ella Strauss. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Isabelle Russell and Javier Picayo. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Isabelle Russell and Javier Picayo. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Kristin Eliasberg and Paul Newman. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Kristin Eliasberg and Paul Newman. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Sandy Vega and Shanaye Jeffers. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Sandy Vega and Shanaye Jeffers. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Frederique van der Wal; Hannah Jocelyn, Rumer Willis, and Bruce Willis; Griffin Dunne; and Richard Harrison, Iké Udé, JP Russell, Ray Charles White, and Kim Sceli. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Frederique van der Wal; Hannah Jocelyn, Rumer Willis, and Bruce Willis; Griffin Dunne; and Richard Harrison, Iké Udé, JP Russ... Clockwise from top left: Frederique van der Wal; Hannah Jocelyn, Rumer Willis, and Bruce Willis; Griffin Dunne; and Richard Harrison, Iké Udé, JP Russell, Ray Charles White, and Kim Sceli. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Ann Marshall and Christy Turlington. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Ann Marshall and Christy Turlington. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Jef Kaplan and Colm Feore. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Jef Kaplan and Colm Feore. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Henry Geldzahler, Harry Kondoleon, Robert Harms, and Iké Udé. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Henry Geldzahler, Harry Kondoleon, Robert Harms, and Iké Udé. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Geraint Wyn Davies and Hannah Gross. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Geraint Wyn Davies and Hannah Gross. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Imogene Strauss and Jean Marie McKee. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Imogene Strauss and Jean Marie McKee. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Tom Slaughter, Mark Linn-Baker, Fanelli Cafe, and Stephen Hannock. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Tom Slaughter, Mark Linn-Baker, Fanelli Cafe, and Stephen Hannock. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Alia and Dom Hussey and Jenni Avins. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Alia and Dom Hussey and Jenni Avins. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Jeremy Pollard and Marthe Jocelyn. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Jeremy Pollard and Marthe Jocelyn. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: John Robin Baitz, José Picayo, Milton Steinberg, and Mark Gero. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: John Robin Baitz, José Picayo, Milton Steinberg, and Mark Gero. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Michael Ridgway and Moe. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Michael Ridgway and Moe. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Ray Charles White; David Marshall Grant; Jared Leto and Mark Gero; and Tom McCamus. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
Clockwise from top left: Ray Charles White; David Marshall Grant; Jared Leto and Mark Gero; and Tom McCamus. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Publishers of Japanese edition of 1 2 3 and Rita Engelbart. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Publishers of Japanese edition of 1 2 3 and Rita Engelbart. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Professor Putter and Tom Haynes. Photo: Tom Slaughter.
From left: Professor Putter and Tom Haynes. Photo: Tom Slaughter.

Tom Slaughter is out now from the Artist Book Foundation.

*This article appears in the April 15, 2019, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!

Tom Slaughter’s Polaroid Portfolio