Bruce Davidson (photographer)
{{short description|American photographer|bot=PearBOT 5}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Bruce L. Davidson
| image = Bruce Davidson 2015.jpg
| caption = Davidson in 2015
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1933|9|5|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Oak Park, Illinois, U.S.
| death_date =
| death_place =
| notable works = Brooklyn Gang, The Dwarf, East 100th Street, Subway
| occupation = Photographer
| spouse = {{plainlist|
- {{marriage|Emily Haas|1967|2023|reason=died}}
}}
}}
Bruce Landon Davidson (born September 5, 1933) is an American photographer, who has been a member of the Magnum Photos agency since 1958. His photographs, notably those taken in Harlem, New York City, have been widely exhibited and published. He is known for photographing communities that are usually hostile to outsiders.{{cite news | url = https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/10920152/Bruce-Davidson-people-didnt-really-know-what-a-camera-could-do.html | date = 19 September 2014 | accessdate = 1 January 2015| first = Lucy | last = Davies | newspaper = The Daily Telegraph | title = Bruce Davidson: 'people didn't really know what a camera could do'}}
Biography
=Early life and education=
Davidson was born on September 5, 1933, in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, to a Jewish family of Polish origins. When he was 10, his mother built him a darkroom in their basement and he began taking photographs.{{Citation | author1=Goldberg, Vicki | author2=Davidson, Bruce | title=Bruce Davidson: An illustrated biography | date=2015 | location=Munich | publisher=Prestel | isbn=978-3-7913-8135-0 }} When he was fifteen, his mother remarried to a lieutenant commander in the navy who was given a Kodak rangefinder camera, which Davidson was allowed to use before being given a more advanced camera for his bar mitzvah.Cotton, C. (2015). Bruce Davidson. Aperture, (220), 94–107. He was employed at Austin Camera as a stock boy and was approached by local news photographer{{Citation | author1=Warren, Lynne | author2=Warren, Lynn | title=Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography | date=2005 | publisher=Taylor and Francis | isbn=978-0-203-94338-0 }} Al Cox, who taught him the technical nuances of photography, in addition to lighting and printing skills, including dye transfer colour. His artistic influences included Robert Frank, Eugene Smith,{{Citation | author1=Frizot, Michel | title=The new history of photography | date=1998 | publisher=Könemann | isbn=978-3-8290-1328-4 }} and Henri Cartier-Bresson.{{cite news |last1=Blume |first1=Mary |title=Bruce Davidson's 'encounters with the invisible' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/arts/28iht-blume.4748533.html |work=The New York Times |date=28 February 2007}}
At 19, Davidson won his first national recognition for his photography, the 1952 Kodak National High School Photographic Award, for a picture of an owl.Caption 'First prize in the animal life classification was awarded to Bruce L. Davidson of Oak Park-River Forest (III.) High'. '1952 Kingpins in the World of Photography'. In The Glenville Torch Volume 33 No. 1 Friday, October 10, 1952. Glenville high school, Cleveland, Ohiosee also Jim Hughes' recollection [http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/09/my-summer-in-maine.html here] at The Online Photographer. From 1951, Davidson attended the Rochester Institute of Technology where he used a second-hand Contax to photograph at Lighthouse Mission as he studied under Ralph Hattersley, and in 1955, continued his graduate studies at Yale University, studying philosophy, painting, and photography under graphic designer Herbert Matter, photographer and designer Alexey Brodovitch, and artist Josef Albers. Davidson showed Albers a box of prints of alcoholics on Skid Row; Albers told him to throw out his "sentimental" work and join his class in drawing and color. For his college thesis, Davidson created a photo-essay, ‘‘Tension in the Dressing Room,’’ his first to be published in Life, documenting the emotions of Yale football players behind the scenes of the game."A Dangerous Silence: A quiet team in a locker room is a threatening one on field. Photographed for LIFE by Bruce L. Davidson". Life, 31 Oct 1955, pp.70–74, Vol. 39, No. 18, ISSN 0024-3019.
=Military photographer=
After one semester at Yale, Davidson was drafted into the US Army, where he served in the Signal Corps at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, attached to the post's photo pool. Initially, he was given routine photo assignments. An editor of the post's newspaper, recognizing his talents, asked that he be permanently assigned to the newspaper. There, given a certain degree of autonomy, he was allowed to further hone his talents.
The Army posted Davidson to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe, just outside Paris; and, in bohemian Montmartre, he photographed the widow of the impressionist painter Leon Fauché with her husband's paintings in an archetypal garret. She was old enough to have known Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Gauguin. Davidson's resulting photo-essay, Widow of Montmartre, was published in Esquire in 1958.[https://classic.esquire.com/article/1958/10/1/widow-of-montmartre#!&pid=138 Esquire Archive] The series impressed Henri Cartier-Bresson, who became a personal friend and facilitated Davidson's induction into Magnum Photos.Hughes, H. S. (2016). "The making of Bruce Davidson." Photo District News, 36(7), 24.
=Magnum Photos=
After his military service, in 1957,{{Citation | author1=Loengard, John | title=Pictures under discussion | date=1987 | publisher=Amphoto | edition=1st | isbn=978-0-8174-5539-2 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/picturesunderdis00loen }} Davidson worked briefly as a freelance photographer.
In 1958, he became an associate member of the Magnum Photos agency and a full member a year later.{{Citation|author1=Miller, Russell| authorlink1=Russell Miller | title=Magnum: Fifty years at the front line of history|date=1997|publisher=Secker & Warburg|isbn=978-0-436-20373-2}} During the summer of 1959 and coincidentally only two years after the premiere of West Side Story, through a social worker he made contact with homeless, troubled teenagers who called themselves the Jokers, and after photographing them over 11 months produced Brooklyn Gang.Tom, P. (1997). "Bad Boys: Bruce Davidson's Gang Photographs and Outlaw Masculinity." Art Journal, 56(2), 69–74. Their leader was also the subject of extensive interviews by Davidson's wife-to-be Emily Haas (they married in 1967), later published with his photographs.{{Citation | author1=Davidson, Emily S | author2=Powers, Robert B | title=Bobby's book | date=2012 | publisher=Seven Stories Press | edition= 1st | isbn=978-1-60980-448-0 }}
When in 1960 Queen magazine invited him to Britain for two months, he documented the idiosyncratic stoicism of the natives of the islands from an American perspective.
Through the agency in 1961 he received his first assignment to photograph high fashion for Vogue, and was assigned by The New York Times to cover the Freedom Riders in the South.{{Citation | author1=Riboud, Marc | author2=Capa, Cornell | author3=Edelson, Michael | author4=Muzeʼon Yiśraʼel (Jerusalem) | author5=International Fund for Concerned Photography | title=The Concerned photographer 2: The photographs of Marc Riboud, Roman Vishniac, Bruce Davidson, Gordon Parks, Ernst Haas, Hiroshi Hamaya, Donald McCullin, W. Eugene Smith | date=1972 | publisher=Grossman Publishers | isbn=978-0-670-23557-5 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/concernedphotogr0000unse }} The Freedom Riders assignment in the South led Davidson to undertake a documentary project on the civil rights movement. From 1961 to 1965, he chronicled its events and effects around the country.{{Citation | author1=Lubben, Kristen | author2=Magnum Photos, inc | title=Magnum contact sheets | date=2011 | publisher=Thames & Hudson | isbn=978-0-500-54399-3 }} A number were shown in the 1965 Smithsonian Institution exhibition project Profile of Poverty, produced by the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) in support of the antipoverty programs of the 1960s. President Johnson assembled the 'White House Photography Program,' headed by MoMA's John Szarkowski, through which Davidson's project was used to humanise the poor and demonstrate the urgency of government action.{{Citation | author1=Duganne, Erina | title=The self in black and white: Race and subjectivity in postwar American photography | date=2010 | publisher=Dartmouth College Press; University Press of New England | isbn=978-1-58465-802-3 }} In support of the project, Davidson received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1961,{{cite web|accessdate=2018-12-23|title=John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/bruce-davidson/}} and the project was displayed in 1963 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and curator John Szarkowski included pictures from the project in a 1966 solo exhibition, and they were also included in The Negro American, a 1966 collection of essays on the status of African-Americans.{{Citation | author1=Parsons, Talcott | author2=Clark, Kenneth Bancroft | authorlink1=Talcott Parsons | authorlink2=Kenneth Bancroft Clark | title=The Negro American | date=1966 | publisher=Houghton Mifflin | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/10816663}} Upon the completion of his documentation of the civil rights movement, Davidson received the first ever photography grant from the National Endowment for the Arts of $12,000.
In 1964, Davidson became an instructor at the School of Visual Arts, New York (thereafter giving private workshops in his own studio/darkroom), and continued to produce features for Vogue; Philip Johnson in his glass house,{{Citation | author1=Scholastic Library Publishing | title=Encyclopedia Americana | date=2004 | publisher=Danbury, Conn Scholastic Library Publishing | edition= International| page=138| isbn=978-0-7172-0137-2 }} Andy Warhol in his loft, Cristina Ford in her backyard, and offered a photography workshop from his Greenwich Village studio. He produced a story on a “topless” restaurant in San Francisco for Esquire (1965), then later in the year traveled to Wales for a Holiday magazine assignment to photograph castles and also covered the coal mining industry in South Wales. On his honeymoon in 1967, Davidson photographed the James Duffy and Sons Circus in Ireland, for the series Circus.
Davidson's next project, published in 1970 as East 100th Street—a two-year documentationBecker, Howard S. (1974). "[https://repository.upenn.edu/svc/vol1/iss1/3/ Photography and sociology]." Studies in Visual Communication, 1(1), 3–26. of a conspicuously poverty-strickenDehavenon, A. L. (1995). "A retrospective on two and a half decades of East Harlem research." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 749(1), 137–151.Stringfellow, W. (1978). "Christianity, Poverty and the Practice of the Law." Cap. UL Rev., 8, 451.{{Vague|date=December 2018}} block in East Harlem—is a widely referenced work.{{Citation | author1=Panzer, Mary | author2=Caujolle, Christian | author3=Foam Fotografiemuseum (Amsterdam, Netherlands) | title=Things as they are: Photojournalism in context since 1955 | date=2007 | publisher=Aperture Foundation | edition= 1st paperback | isbn=978-1-59711-036-5 }} Its series of Environmental portraits was shot on large format film with a view camera. Vicki Goldberg and Milton Kramer identify it as the first work of photojournalism to be presented as an art book. The project was also displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in 1970 and subjects of the two-year Harlem project were invited to the opening of the show after Davidson had already presented two thousand prints to people on the block.Orvell, M. (2012). "The absolute power of the lens: Zoe Strauss and the problem of the street portrait." Afterimage, 40(2), 10–13.
Davidson followed this with Subway,Thornton, Gene. (1982). The subway viewed ambivalently. (International Center of Photography, New York). The New York Times, p. H31. a portrayal of passengers on the New York City Subway system, 1980–82 using color.{{Citation | author1=Morgan, Ann Lee | author2=Oxford University Press | title=The Oxford dictionary of American art and artists | date=2007 | publisher=Oxford University Press | edition= 1st | isbn=978-0-19-512878-9 }}
File:Bruce Davidson, RIT NandE Vol18Num3 1986 Oct9 Complete.jpg
Over a decade later, in the early 1990s, Davidson completed a four-year exploration of Central Park in homage to New York City.{{cite web|first1=Sean|last1=O'Hagan|authorlink=Sean O'Hagan (journalist)|access-date=2022-09-15|title=Photographer Donavon Smallwood: 'What's it like to be a black person in nature?'|url=http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/jun/26/donavon-smallwood-photographs-black-nature-central-park-langour|date=26 June 2021|website=The Observer}}
In 1998, Davidson returned to East 100th Street to document the revitalization, renewal and changes that occurred in the 30 years since he last documented it. For this visit, he presented a community slide show and received an Open Society Institute Individual Fellowship Award.
=Filmmaker=
Davidson took stills for Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point, as he also did on The Misfits,Miller, Arthur, Toubiana, Serge, & Arnold, Eve. (2000). The Misfits: Story of a Shoot. Phaidon. amongst Inge Morath, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dennis Stock, Eve Arnold, Ernst Haas, Cornell Capa, Elliott Erwitt, and Erich Hartmann.Kouvaros, G. (2002). "The misfits: What happened around the camera." Film Quarterly, 55(4), 28–33. But he also produced motion pictures himself. In 1968 he purchased a 16mm movie camera to film on East 100th Street.
Davidson directed short films; the documentaries Living off the Land (1986)Living off the Land (1986) Television documentary featuring Willy Royka and Emily Royka, Director: Bruce Davidson, Time-Life Broadcasting, Acacia Productions, Otmoor Productions, Producer J. Edward Milner, Series Editor: John Edginton, Associate Producer: Nikki Nagasiri on conservation in the United Kingdom made with a grant from the American Film Institute and awarded the Critics Choice Award, and Zoo Doctor (1971) for children. With another grant from the American Film Institute he produced a 28-minute dramatisation Isaac Singer’s Nightmare and Mrs. Pupko’s Beard (1972) which appeared on Public Television and won first prize in its class in the 1972 American Film Festival.{{Vague|date=January 2019}}{{Citation | author1=Isaac Bashevis Singer | authorlink1=Isaac Bashevis Singer | author2=Farrell, Grace | title=Isaac Bashevis Singer conversations | date=1992 | publisher=Jackson University Press of Mississippi | isbn=978-0-87805-589-0 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/isaacbashevissin00sing_0 }}{{cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/5770/releases/MOMA_1979_0070_58.pdf|title="Award winning films from the American Film Festival to be screened at the Museum of Modern Art at noon on Mondays and Tuesdays" Museum of Modern Art Press Release, 1979|website=moma.org}}
=Later career=
Davidson continues to work as an editorial photographer, and has contributed to the Center for Photography at Woodstock workshops and lectures.Events. (2003, May–June). Afterimage, 30(6)
An image from his Brooklyn Gang series was used as the cover for Bob Dylan's 2009 album Together Through Life.
Critical reception
The longevity of Bruce Davidson's practice, and its impact, is demonstrated in his having work featured in, or being the subject of, fourteen exhibitions over fifty years at a single major institution, the Museum of Modern Art in New York: Photographs from the Museum Collection, November 26, 1958 – January 18, 1959; Photographs for Collectors, October 1–16, 1960; Recent Acquisitions, December 21, 1960 – February 5, 1961; Art in a Changing World: 1884–1964: Edward Steichen Photography Center, May 27, 1964; The Photo Essay, March 16 – May 16, 1965; Bruce Davidson July 7 – October 2, 1966; Steichen Gallery Reinstallation, October 25, 1967; Portrait Photographs, July 9 – September 28, 1969; East 100th Street: Photographs by Bruce Davidson, September 22 – November 29, 1970; Mirrors and Windows: American Photography since 1960, July 26 – October 2, 1978; Edward Steichen Photography Center Reinstallation, December 21, 1979; Reinstallation of the Collection, October 23, 1980 – January 3, 1982; New York at Night: Photographs from the Collection, December 12, 2006 – March 5, 2007; Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen, September 15, 2010 – May 2, 2011.{{cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/history?constituent_id=1398&locale=en&sort_date=closing_date|title=Exhibition history – MoMA|website=The Museum of Modern Art}}
In a 1966 Museum of Modern Art press release, John Szarkowski, then Director of the Museum's Department of Photography, wrote;
{{blockquote|"Few contemporary photographers give us their observation so unembellished — so free of apparent craft or artifice — as does Bruce Davidson. In his work, formal and technical concerns remain below the surface, all but invisible. The presence that fills these pictures seems the presence of the life that is described, scarcely changed by its transmutation into art."|sign=John Szarkowski|source=Museum of Modern Art Press Release, July 7, 1966{{cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_press-release_326461.pdf|title=Museum of Modern Art Press Release, July 7, 1966|website=moma.org}}}}
His photograph from the Brooklyn Gang series of a couple preening in front of a mirrored cigarette machine at Coney Island is on the cover of Reading Magnum: A visual archive of the modern world, in which Steven Hoelscher rates the image as 'iconic'.{{Citation|author1=Hoelscher, Steven D., (editor of compilation)|title=Reading Magnum: A visual archive of the modern world|date=2013|edition= First|publisher=Austin University of Texas Press|isbn=978-0-292-74843-9|author2=Magnum Photos|author3=Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center}} On a formal level, Richard D. Zakia notes Davidson's aesthetic use of 'found' symbolism in his environmental portraits, referring in particular to the cover image of his book East 100th Street.Zakia, Richard D. (1993). "Photography and visual perception." Journal of Aesthetic Education, 27(4), 67–81. doi:10.2307/3333501
Davidson's extended involvement with his subjects, and their reciprocal trust, is regarded as an exemplar in photography of the "New Journalism" based in authentic documentary content mediated through a subjective, personal perspective and characterised by representations of those who are not part of mainstream culture. For Laura Hapke he is an inheritor of a radical heritage in American working-class studies extending from Ben Shahn.Hapke, Laura. (2002). "Marxism and American exceptionalism." Rethinking Marxism, 14(3), 32–35,141.
Gary Sampson of the Cleveland Institute of Art lists Davidson alongside Danny Lyon and Diane Arbus as photographers who reacted to Robert Frank’s European perspective in The Americans with a ‘hip’ ‘insider’ investigation of U.S. subcultures pervaded by a sombre angst. He points to Nathan Lyons' characterisation of this trend as ‘social landscape’ in Lyon's curation of the 1966 George Eastman House Toward a Social Landscape.{{Citation | author1=Peres, Michael R | author2=ProQuest (Firm) | title=Focal encyclopedia of photography: Digital imaging, theory and applications, history, and science | date=2007 | publisher=Elsevier | edition= 4th | isbn=978-0-08-047784-8 }} The term "social landscape" was coined in 1963 by Lee Friedlander to describe his photographs, and was subsequently attached to the work of Davidson, Lyon, Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus, and Duane Michals; a hybrid term, it refers to a fusion of traditional documentary and landscape photography in which subject and environment are inseparable, and which calls attention to apparently inconsequential events and details so that object and setting modify each other to generate metaphor.Chahroudi, M. (1987). "Twelve photographers look at us." Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin, 83(354/355), 1–31.
Howard S. Becker in 1974 was among the first contemporary sociologists to argue for a 'visual sociology' and connected it to the traditions of documentary photography, suggesting that sociology could draw upon documentary photography, identifying the earliest and most important as Robert Frank's essay on US culture, followed by Bruce Davidson's 1970 study of Harlem.Harper, D. (2003). "Framing photographic ethnography: A case study." Ethnography, 4(2), 241–266.Marco Martiniello (2017) "Visual sociology approaches in migration, ethnic and racial studies", Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40:8, 1184–1190, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1295163
In contrast, Ian Jeffrey, in comparing Davidson with his contemporary (and friend) Diane Arbus, disputes any evident anthropological purpose for East 100th Street, instead seeing its subjects as survivors inhabiting “a darkness articulated by architectural details” and his portraits relying, like Arbus's, on "atmosphere rather than an analysis". Though they live in an oppressive environment, he writes, they "demand to be taken seriously", while Arbus represents "figments of her imagination"; her subjects "actors in a social drama."Jeffrey, Ian. (1995). "Diane Arbus and the past when she was good." History of Photography, 19(2), 95–99.
However, also regarding East 100th Street, Douglas Harper goes as far as to accuse Davidson of "prettying up racial poverty";{{Citation | author1=Brent, Edward E. | author2=Blank, Grant | author3=McCartney, James L | title=New technology in sociology: Practical applications in research and work | date=1989 | publisher=Transaction Publishers | isbn=978-0-88738-769-2 }} while critic A. D. Coleman decries the absence of minority photographers to document it themselves. This is an issue elaborated by Erina Duganne's analyses of Davidson's, Roy DeCarava's and the Kamoinge Workshop's "Harlem" imagery, showing how poverty may be identified with ethnicity, and how photographers' cultural identity is revealed through their photographs. Coleman points to the pains taken by Davidson to avoid accusations of exploiting a repressed subculture, though stresses that he does so because of the charged politics of a white man, neither black nor Puerto Rican, "not only an outsider but an alien", photographing in the ghetto. If "Davidson has transmuted a truth which is not beautiful into an art", making a striking composition of a rat on a garbage dump, writes Coleman, the garbage may "continue to stink and decompose, and may even endure longer than Davidson's superb prints."A. D. Coleman. "Two critics Look at Davidson's ‘East 100th St.’." New York Times, October 11, 1970, p. 127 In interview with Charlotte Cotton, Davidson answers the criticism;
{{Blockquote|text=I didn't have to be black or Puerto Rican to take photographs on East 100th Street, I just had to stay there long enough for people to understand what I was about. And I still, to some extent, have a relationship with those people.|sign=Bruce Davidson|source=Aperture, No. 220, The Interview Issue (Fall 2015), pp. 94–107.}}
Awards
- 1949 First Prize, Kodak National High School Competition, Animal Division
- 1961 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
- 1967 National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Photography{{Citation | author1=National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, DC | title=National Council on the Arts: National Endowment for the Arts. The First Five Years: Fiscal 1966 Through Fiscal 1970 | date=1970 | publisher=Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/151670317}}{{Citation | author1=Hirsch, Robert | title=Seizing the light: A social and aesthetic history of photography | date=2017 | publisher=Routledge | edition= Third | page=472 |isbn=978-1-138-94425-1 }}
- 1963 Critics' Award, American Film Festival{{Vague|date=January 2019}} (Living Off the Land)AFI NEWS. (1977). American Film (Archive: 1975–1992), 2(4), 57–58.
- 1973 First Prize in Fiction, American Film Festival{{Vague|date=January 2019}} (Isaac Singer's Nightmare and Mrs. Pupko's Beard){{Citation | author1=Davidson, Bruce | author2=Stavans, Ilan | author3=Davidson, Bruce | author4=Meredith, Jill | author5=Singer, Isaac Bashevis | author6=Werffeli, Gabriele | author7=Mead Art Museum (Amherst College) | title=Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Lower East Side | date=2004 | publisher=Mead Art Museum, Amherst College ; University of Wisconsin Press | page=14 | isbn=978-0-299-20624-6 }}
- 1982 National Endowment for the Arts GrantForesta, M. A. (1984). Exposed and developed: photography sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. National Museum of American Art.
- 1998 Open Society Institute, Individual Fellowship {{cite web |title=Bruce Davidson |url=https://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_9_VForm&ERID=24KL53ZTH6 |website=Magnum Photos |accessdate=27 February 2019}}
- 2004 Lucie Award, Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Photography{{cite web|url=http://www.lucies.org/honorees/bruce-davidson/|title=The Lucie Awards – Bruce Davidson|website=lucies.org}}
- 2007 Gold Medal Visual Arts Award, National Arts Club {{cite web |title=Bruce Davidson |url=https://holdenluntz.com/artists/bruce-davidson |website=Holden Luntz |accessdate=27 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190227182048/https://holdenluntz.com/artists/bruce-davidson |archive-date=27 February 2019 |url-status=dead }}
- 2011 Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award at the 2011 Sony World Photography Awards{{cite web |last1=Bowker |first1=Daniela |title=Bruce Davidson receives Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award |url=http://www.photocritic.org/articles/bruce-davidson-receives-outstanding-contribution-to-photography-award |website=Photo Critic |accessdate=8 March 2011}}
- 2018 Infinity Award Life Time Achievement, the International Center of Photography{{cite web |title=2018 INFINITY AWARD: LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT — BRUCE DAVIDSON |url=https://www.icp.org/infinity-awards/bruce-davidson |website=International Center of Photography |date=14 February 2018 |accessdate=27 February 2019}}
- 2021 Royal Photographic Society Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship
Publications
- East 100th Street.
- Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970. Hardback {{ISBN|0-674-22435-3}}; softback {{ISBN|0-674-22436-1}}.
- Los Angeles: St Ann's Press, 2003. {{ISBN|0-9713681-3-9}}. Expanded edition.
- Bruce Davidson Photographs. Agrinde/Summit, 1978. Paperback {{ISBN|0-671-40068-1}}.
- Subway.
- New York: Aperture, 1986. {{ISBN|0-89381-231-5}}.
- Los Angeles: St Ann's Press, 2003. {{ISBN|0-9713681-8-X}}. Expanded edition.
- Göttingen: Steidl, 2011. {{ISBN|978-3-86930-294-2}}. With texts by Fred Braithwaite, "Bruce Davidson's Subway"; Davidson, "Train of Thought"; and Henry Geldzahler, "Reflections".
- Portraits. New York: Aperture, 1991. Hardback {{ISBN|0-89381-851-8}}.
- Central Park. Aperture, 1995; 2004; 2005. {{ISBN|9780893816254}}.
- Brooklyn Gang: Summer 1959. Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms, 1998. {{ISBN|978-0944092507}}.
- Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Lower East Side: Photographs by Bruce Davidson. Amhurst, MA: Mead Art Museum; Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004. {{ISBN|978-0-299-20620-8}} (paperback); {{ISBN|978-0-299-20624-6}} (paperback).
- England/Scotland 1960. Göttingen: Steidl, 2006. {{ISBN|3-86521-127-5}}.
- Göttingen: Steidl, 2013. {{ISBN|9783869305530}}. Enlarged edition.
- Outside Inside. Göttingen: Steidl, 2010. {{ISBN|978-3-86521-908-4}}. A three-volume collection containing black and white photographs that spanned his career to date.Sean O'Hagan, "[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/13/outside-inside-bruce-davidson-review Outside Inside by Bruce Davidson]", The Guardian, 13 June 2010.
- Black and White. Göttingen: Steidl, 2012. {{ISBN|978-3869304328}}. A five-volume set comprising reprints of Circus (1958), Brooklyn Gang (1959), Time of Change (1961–1965), East 100th Street (1966–1968), and Central Park (1992–1995), some of them newly edited and expanded.
- In Color. Göttingen: Steidl, 2014. {{ISBN|978-3869305646}}.
- Los Angeles 1964. Göttingen: Steidl, 2015. {{ISBN|9783869307893}}.
- Nature of Los Angeles. Göttingen: Steidl, 2015. {{ISBN|9783869308142}}.
- Survey. New York: Aperture; Madrid: Fundación Mapfre, 2016. {{ISBN|978-1-59711-377-9}}. With texts by Charlotte Cotton, Carlos Gollonet, Frits Gierstberg, and Francesco Zanot. Exhibition catalogue. Contains work from Brooklyn Gang, Subway, Central Park, East 100th Street and more recent Paris and Los Angeles landscapes.
- Lesser Known. Göttingen: Steidl, 2017. {{ISBN|9783958293212}}.
Exhibitions
=Solo exhibitions=
- 1965 Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
- 1965 International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York
- 1965 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
- 1966 Museum of Modern Art, New York City
- 1966 Moderna Museet, Stockholm
- 1970 East 100th Street: Photographs by Bruce Davidson; Museum of Modern Art, New York City{{cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_press-release_326702.pdf|title= The Museum of Modern Art, Press Release, September 22, 1970: "East 100th Street, an exhibition of 43 photographs made by Bruce Davidson over a two-year period on a single block of East Harlem, will be on view at The Museum of Modern Art from September 23 to November 29"|website=moma.org}}
- 1971 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
- 1976 Addison Gallery, Andover, Massachusetts
- 1979 FNAC Gallery, Paris
- 1979 Galerie Delpire, Paris
- 1979 Galerie Fiolet, Amsterdam
- 1982 Douglas Kenyon Gallery, Chicago
- 1983 New York Subway Color; International Center of Photography, New York City {{cite web |title=Bruce Davidson |url=http://www.stevenkasher.com/artists/bruce-davidson |website=Steven Kasher Gallery}}
- 1997 Bruce Davidson: American Photographs; Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York City
- 1998 Bruce Davidson: The Brooklyn Gang, 1959; International Center of Photography, New York City {{cite web |title=Brooklyn Gang |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/285420 |website=The Met |accessdate=27 February 2019}}
- 2007 Bruce Davidson: Time of Change. Aperture Gallery, New York City"Exhibitions." Afterimage, May–June 2007, pp. 39+Davidson, B., Lewis, J., & Willis, D. (2002). Time of Change. St. Ann's Press.
- 2007 Bruce Davidson: La Nature de Paris, Maison européenne de la photographie, Paris, June 13, 2007 – Sept 30, 2007{{cite web|url=https://www.mep-fr.org/event/bruce-davidson/|title=Bruce Davidson|website=Maison Européenne de la Photographie}}
- 2017 Bruce Davidson WestLicht. Schauplatz für Fotografie, Vienna, June 15 – August 20 {{cite web |title=Bruce Davidson |url=http://www.westlicht.com/en/exhibitions/archive/2017/bruce-davidson/ |website=Westlicht Gallery |accessdate=15 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190227120837/http://www.westlicht.com/en/exhibitions/archive/2017/bruce-davidson/ |archive-date=27 February 2019 |url-status=dead }}
- 2017/18 Bruce Davidson: American Photographer Netherlands Photo Museum, Rotterdam, Sep 16, 2017 – Jan 7 2018 {{cite web |title=BRUCE DAVIDSONAMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER |url=https://www.nederlandsfotomuseum.nl/en/exhibition/bruce-davidson-eng/ |website=Nederlands Fotomuseum |accessdate=27 February 2019}}
- 2018/19 Bruce Davidson: Leica Hall of Fame 2018, Leica Galerie Milano, Nov 13, 2018 – Jan 26, 2019 {{cite web |title=Bruce Davidson, Leica Galerie Milan |url=https://www.vogue.it/photo-vogue-festival/exhibition/2018/11/04/bruce-davidson-leica-galerie-milano/ |website=Vogue Italia |accessdate=18 November 2018 |archive-date=27 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190227183511/https://www.vogue.it/photo-vogue-festival/exhibition/2018/11/04/bruce-davidson-leica-galerie-milano/ |url-status=dead }}
=Group exhibitions=
- 1959 Photography at Mid Century; George Eastman House, Rochester, New York{{Citation | author1=Auer, Michèle | author2=Auer, Michel | title=Encyclopédie internationale des photographes de 1839 à nos jours = Photographers encyclopaedia international 1839 to the present | date=1985 | publisher=Editions Camera obscura | isbn=978-2-903671-06-8 }}
- 1960 The World as Seen by Magnum; Takashimaya Department Store, Tokyo, Japan and traveling
- 1962 Ideas in Images; American Federation of Arts, New York, New York, and traveling
- 1966 Contemporary Photography Since 1950; George Eastman House, Rochester, New York
- 1966 Toward a Social Landscape: Contemporary Photographers; George Eastman House, Rochester, New York{{Citation | author1=Lyons, Nathan | author2=Davidson, Bruce, 1933– | author3=George Eastman House | title=Toward a social landscape | date=1967 | publisher=Horizon Press | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/19698218}}
- 1967 12 Photographers of the American Social Landscape; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Boston, Massachusetts{{Citation | author1=Garver, Thomas H | author2=Davidson, Bruce | title=12 photographers of the American social landscape | date=1967 | publisher=October House | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/34565306}}
- 1973 The Concerned Photographer 2; Israel Museum, Jerusalem and traveling{{Citation | author1=Riboud, Marc | author2=Capa, Cornell, (ed.) | author3=Edelson, Michael | author4=Muzeʼon Yiśraʼel (Jerusalem) | author5=International Fund for Concerned Photography | title=The Concerned Photographer 2: The photographs of Marc Riboud, Roman Vishniac, Bruce Davidson, Gordon Parks, Ernst Haas, Hiroshi Hamaya, Donald McCullin, W. Eugene Smith | date=1972 | publisher=Grossman Publishers | isbn=978-0-670-23557-5 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/concernedphotogr0000unse }}
- 1974 Photography in America; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York{{Citation | author1=Doty, Robert M | author2=Doty, Robert M | author3=Whitney Museum of American Art | title=Photography in America | date=1974 | publisher=Ridge Press ; London: Thames and Hudson | isbn=978-0-500-54024-4 }}
- 1977 Concerning Photography; The Photographers’ Gallery, London, then Spectro Workshop, Newcastle upon Tyne, England.{{Citation | author1=Bayer, Jonathan, 1936- | author2=Photographers' Gallery | title=Concerning photography: Some thoughts about reading photographs | date=1977 | publisher=Photographers' Gallery | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/208195351}}
- 1980 The Imaginary Photo Museum; Kunsthalle, Cologne, Germany{{Citation | author1=Gruber, Renate | author2=Gruber, L. Fritz | title=The imaginary photo museum: With 457 photographs from 1836 to the present | date=1982 | publisher=Harmony Books | edition= 1st American | isbn=978-0-517-54844-8 }}
- 1982 Color as Form: a history of color photography; International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York{{Citation | author1=Upton, John, 1932- | author2=Corcoran Gallery of Art | author3=International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House | title=Color as form: A history of color photography | date=1982 | publisher=International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House | isbn=978-0-935398-06-9 }}
- 1985 American Images 1945–1950; Barbican Art Gallery, London, and traveling{{Citation | author1=Turner, Peter | authorlink1=Peter Turner (writer and photographer) | author2=Barbican Art Gallery | title=American images : photography 1945–1980 | date=1985 | publisher=New York: Viking Penguin | isbn=978-0-670-80619-5 }}
- 1986 New York School, Photographs, 1935–1963, Part III; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- 1989 On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (traveled to Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California){{Citation | author1=Greenough, Sarah | author2=National Gallery of Art (U.S.) | author3=Art Institute of Chicago | author4=Los Angeles County Museum of Art | title=On the art of fixing a shadow: One hundred and fifty years of photography | date=1989 | publisher=National Gallery of Art ; Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago | edition= 1st | isbn=978-0-8212-1757-3 }}
- 1991 Appearances: Fashion Photography Since 1945; Victoria and Albert Museum, London{{Citation | author1=Harrison, Martin | title=Appearances: Fashion photography since 1945 | date=1991 | publisher=Cape | isbn=978-0-224-03067-0 }}
- 2000 Reflections in a Glass Eye: Works from the International Center of Photography Collection; International Center of Photography, New York, New York{{Citation | author1=International Center of Photography | author2=Handy, Ellen, 1961– | title=Reflections in a glass eye : works from the International Center of Photography collection | date=1999 | publisher=Little, Brown and Company ; New York : in association with the International Center of Photography | edition=1st | isbn=978-0-8212-2625-4 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/reflectionsingla0000unse }}
- 2012/13 Everything Was Moving: Photography from the 60s and 70s, Barbican Centre, London, 13 Sep 2012 – 13 Jan 2013{{Citation | author1=Bush, Kate | author2=Barbican Art Gallery | title=Everything was moving: Photography from the 60s and 70s | date=2012 | publisher=London Barbican Art Gallery | isbn=978-0-946372-39-3 }}
- 2014/15 Au Cœur de l'Intime: Paris Champ & Hors Champ Photographies et Vidéos Contemporaines, Galerie des Bibliothèques de la Ville de Paris, Oct 26, 2014 - Jan 4, 2015
- 2014/15 Bruce Davidson and Paul Caponigro: Two American Photographers in Britain and Ireland, The Huntington, MaryLou and George Boone Gallery Nov 8 2014 – March 9, 2015.{{cite web|url=http://media.huntington.org/uploadedfiles/Files/PDFs/Nov-Dec-calendar.pdf|title=The Huntington Calendar|website=huntington.org}}
- 2016 An Ideal for Living: Photographing Class, Culture and Identity in Modern Britain Beetles+Huxley, London, July 27 – September 17.Riches, H., PhD. (2016). Strange and familiar: Britain as revealed by international Photographers/An ideal for living: Photographing class, culture and identity in modern britain. Afterimage, 44(3), 30–31.
Collections
Davidson's work is held in the following permanent collections:
- Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson{{cite web|url=https://ccp.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/cg-d.pdf|title=CCP checklist|website=arizona.edu|access-date=2018-12-30|archive-date=2018-12-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181231092442/https://ccp.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/cg-d.pdf|url-status=dead}}
- Huntington Library, San Marino, California{{Citation | author1=Watts, Jennifer A | author2=Watts, Jennifer A., (editor of compilation.) | author3=Wilcox, Scott., (editor of compilation.) | title=Bruce Davidson/Paul Caponigro: Two American photographers in Britain and Ireland | date=2014 | publisher=Yale University Press | isbn=978-0-300-20149-9 }}
- International Center of Photography, New York{{cite web|url=https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/bruce-davidson|title=Bruce Davidson|date=27 March 2018|website=International Center of Photography}}
- Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=Bruce+Davidson|title=Search Results: "Bruce Davidson" – Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (Library of Congress)|website=www.loc.gov}}
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA){{cite web|url=https://collections.lacma.org/node/154716|title=Bruce Davidson – LACMA Collections|website=collections.lacma.org}}
- Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, Louisiana{{cite web|url=http://www.masurmuseum.org/collection-images|title=Masur Museum of Art, located Monroe Louisiana – Collection Images|website=www.masurmuseum.org|access-date=2018-12-30|archive-date=2019-10-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191018204133/http://www.masurmuseum.org/collection-images|url-status=dead}}
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York[https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search#!/search?artist=Davidson,%20Bruce$Bruce%20Davidson Bruce Davidson photographs in the MoMA collection]
- Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), Chicago, Illinois{{cite web|url=http://www.mocp.org/info.php?s=Bruce+Davidson&t=objects&type=all|title=Museum of Contemporary Photography|website=www.mocp.org|access-date=2018-12-30|archive-date=2018-12-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181231092507/http://www.mocp.org/info.php?s=Bruce+Davidson&t=objects&type=all|url-status=dead}}
- National Gallery of Canada, Musée des Beaux-Arts du Canada, Ottawa{{cite web|url=https://www.gallery.ca/collection/search-the-collection|title=Search the Collection|website=www.gallery.ca}}
- New-York Historical Society, New York{{cite web|url=http://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/islandora:160065|title=[Tenement buildings in East Harlem, New York City, circa 1966–1968]. – New York Historical Society – Digital Collections|website=digitalcollections.nyhistory.org}}{{cite web|url=http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/nyhs/davidson/index.html|title=Guide to the Bruce Davidson Photograph Collection 1966–1968 PR 89|website=dlib.nyu.edu}}
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art{{cite web|url=https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Bruce_Davidson/|title=Bruce Davidson · SFMOMA|website=www.sfmoma.org}}
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York{{cite web|url=http://collection.whitney.org/artist/4765/BruceDavidson|title=Whitney Museum of American Art: Bruce Davidson|website=collection.whitney.org}}
- Yale Center for British Art, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut{{cite web|url=https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Search/Results?join=OR&lookfor0%5B%5D=%22Bruce+Davidson,+born+1933,+American%22&type0%5B%5D=author&bool0%5B%5D=OR&lookfor1%5B%5D=%22Bruce+Davidson,+born+1933,+American%22&type1%5B%5D=author2&bool1%5B%5D=OR&lookfor2%5B%5D=%22Bruce+Davidson,+born+1933,+American%22&type2%5B%5D=author_additional|title=Search Results – (author:"Bruce Davidson, born 1933,...|website=collections.britishart.yale.edu}}
See also
Notes
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{commons category|Bruce Davidson (photographer)|Bruce Davidson}}
- [http://www.magnumphotos.com/BruceDavidson Profile at Magnum Photos]
- [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/arts/design/08kenn.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bruce%20davidson&st=cse "Like a Plant, His Roots Are Showing," New York Times, November 8, 2009]
- [http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/nyhs/davidson/index.html The Bruce Davidson Photograph Collection] at the New-York Historical Society
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt7l30ejNS0 Photographer Bruce Davidson: Inside A 1950s Brooklyn Gang, TIME, Jun 11, 2018]
{{Civil rights movement|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control (arts)}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davidson, Bruce}}
Category:Artists from Oak Park, Illinois
Category:Photography in the United Kingdom