Bruce davidson photography civil rights

A new collaboration between the Penn Art Collection and the Penn Libraries has mounted its first exhibition in what is being called the “alcove” gallery on the fifth floor of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center. “Time of Change: Civil Rights Photography of Bruce Davidson” is on view through May 20.

The six photographs featured are among 35 donated to the Penn Art Collection in 2019 by Tamir Bloom, a 1994 graduate, and his wife, Leah Bloom, avid collectors of Davidson’s work, says Lynn Smith Dolby, director of the Penn Art Collection.

Bruce Davidson, now 90 and still working with Magnum Photos, actively participated in civil rights rides and marches from 1961 to 1965, resulting in his “Time of Change” series. He went from Montgomery, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi, with the Freedom Riders, documenting their experiences as they challenged segregation in the interstate bus system in the South.

“Some of these images may feel familiar to us because we have seen them over the years, but thinking of the time, these photographs were really revolutionary,” and capture an important era in American history, Dolby says. “His photography focuses on the very personal human experiences of these moments.”

An “immersive photographer,” Davidson called himself “an outsider on the inside, not just documenting but really participating in this movement,” Dolby says. A few of the Davidson images from the Penn Art Collection have been included in Arthur Ross Gallery exhibitions, she says, but this is the first on campus that features his civil rights era photographs together. The images include people on a bus, at a protest, at a lunch counter, and at the 1963 March on Washington.

The idea to feature works from the Penn Art Collection in an exhibition started with Brittany Merriam, director of exhibits for the Libraries. A set of inkjet prints used to be on the white walls in the hallway outside the Conservation Lab on the fift

Bruce Davidson Biography Born in Oak Park, Illinois, American photographer Bruce Davidson (1933) first worked in a basement darkroom his single mother built when he was 10. Despite studying at Rochester Institute of Technology and Yale University, Bruce Davidson got drafted into the army and while stationed near Paris, he met Henri Cartier-Bresson, the cooperative photography agency Magnum Photos founder and an accomplished photographer himself. By 1958, Bruce Davidson had left the service, started a freelance gig photographing for LIFE magazine, and became a full member at Magnum. Although considered prolific through the stretch of his career, Bruce Davidson's most resonating series are typically cited as The Dwarf, Brooklyn Gang and Freedom Rides. Bruce Davidson's style straddles the line of pure snapshot and sensitivity; he depicts subjects — from circus workers to rugged boardwalk youths — in a way that rings both empathetic and authentic. Bruce Davidson's photographs capturing the Civil Rights Movement are also considered exceptional, especially those shot during the 1965 Selma March. Bruce Davidson's photos have been published in The New York Times, Times Magazine, Esquire, Vogue and more. His pieces have been on display at Museum of Modern Art and International Center of Photography, among other establishments. Bruce Davidson released a three-volume retrospective collection of his work in 2010, entitled Outside Inside and published by master printer Gerhard Steidl. One of Bruce Davidson's images, made 1964 Los Angeles, appeared on the Beastie Boys’ album cover for Ill Communication (1994). Credited as an early explorer of street photography, artist Bruce Davidson is often credited as having an intimate level of insight with his subjects, highlighting themes of loneliness. In 1970, Bruce Davidson created his first significant collection

On May 25, 1961, Bruce Davison joined a group of Freedom Riders traveling by bus from Montgomery, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi. The actions of these youths challenged and disobeyed federal laws allowing for integrated interstate bus travel. These historic episodes, which ended in violence and arrests, marked the beginning of Davidson's exploration into the heart and soul of the civil rights movement in the United States during the years 1961-1965. In 1962, Davidson received a Guggenheim Fellowship and continued documenting the era, including an early Malcolm X rally in Harlem, steel workers in Chicago, a Ku Klux Klan cross burning near Atlanta, farm migrant camps in South Carolina, cotton picking in Mississippi, protest demonstrations in Birmingham, and the heroic Selma March that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was instrumental in changing the political power base in the segregated Southern states. In the 140 photographs collected here, many of which have never before been published, we see intimate and revealing portraits of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and other leaders made by Davidson during those turbulent times. These images describe the mood that prevailed during the civil rights movement with a lyrical imagery that is both poignant and profound. As Davidson bears witness to these historical events, and documents the degradation and segregation that were endured, he gives testimony to the struggle for freedom, equality, justice, and human dignity.

You attended college at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and then began graduate studies at Yale. But after a term there you were drafted into the Army, and you became a military photographer. How did that happen?

I was in Fort Huachuca, in Arizona. I’d submitted some pictures I’d taken of the Yale football team to Life, and they ran the pictures. And then I was at the barracks, sand blowing through, and the captain told me, “We came from the barbershop. We saw Life magazine. Put away that mop. You’re photographing the general now, sir.”

Later, I was sent to Paris. There was a security lab there, where an experimental heart operation was being performed, and they wanted documentation of that. I was there for eleven months or so.

And that was when you made the “Widow of Montmartre.”

Yes, I was introduced to a French soldier who liked painting—he was an artist, actually. And he said, “There’s a widow you should visit—she’s very interesting. She’s 92. She is the widow of Leon Fauchet, an Impressionist painter. And she lives alone on top of this garret, all the way up eight flights of stairs.” So he introduced me to the Widow of Montmartre. And if you look through the contact sheets you can see how close a relationship we had with her. She took me to a market, and the people in the market would make fun of her with this young chap.