Bruce Davidson Bücher

“Go back into the subway and look beyond the graffiti. Lift up your heads and look around, see what Bruce has revealed – the beauty in the subway population, the enormous amount of colour below and above ground, the varieties and pleasures to be seen from the subway. The shrill insistence of the noise in our ears and of the graffiti to our eyes does not end the catalogue of effects the subway has on our senses. Bruce Davidson has reopened and rewritten that catalogue with this magnificent series of photographs. Light, colour, humanity, affection, and hope can be added to our impressions of the New York subway system.” In 1980, Bruce Davidson began capturing the New York subway, immersing himself in this vibrant yet sometimes perilous environment. Initially working in black and white, he soon recognized the necessity of color to convey the vividness of this graffiti-laden world. This updated edition features new scans of Davidson’s Kodachrome slides and includes additional images. Born in 1933, Davidson started photographing at age ten and later studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Yale University before serving in the army. After his military service, he freelanced for LIFE and joined Magnum in 1958. His accolades include a Guggenheim fellowship and the first National Endowment for the Arts in Photography. Steidl has also published his works, including England / Scotland 1960, Circus, and Outside Inside.

One of the world's most influential photographers, Bruce Davidson, takes readers inside three midcentury big tops in images that are poetic, realistic and profound. He reveals not only the swiftly vanishing cultural phenomenon of the circus, but what might be called the eternal human circus. At a three-ring show in 1958 he climbed to the top of the tent to view the performances of the famous liontamer Clyde Beatty and human cannonball Hugo Zacchini. His deeper interest lay in the daily lives of circus performers and producers--the roustabouts and riggers, and the pretty girl who rode an elephant in what was called the "spec." He also made an intimate series of a dwarf clown. In 1965 at a huge multi-ring coliseum show, Davidson took a more critical look at performances under a steel-and-concrete environment; continuing behind the scenes, his vision became sharper and more surreal. And in 1967, Davidson caught the elegant exuberance of an Irish one-ring circus. He photographed the kinds of performances that are the essence of the medium, including a face-to-face encounter with an exceptional trapeze artist. Most of these pictures are published here for the first time.

“Traffic, wealth, poverty, violence, and other urban phenomena give way to valiant plant life where ivy thrive on the underside of the 405 and Glendale Freeway interchanges, and a tree in the foothills regenerates itself after a wildfire has parched its bark. Without its plant life and human respect for it, L. A. would be a vast desert void.” Bruce Davidson In 2008, Bruce Davidson began exploring Los Angeles from the point of view of its exotic plant life. The arid climate, normally hostile to life, allows for an exceptional botanical diversity in L. A. County that reaches from the surrounding foothills and mountain wilderness to the Pacific Ocean. His images show us both the beauty and banality of urban existence around us.

This volume presents Bruce Davidson’s personal selections from his lesser-known color archive. Ranging from a period of fifty-six years and counting, these images are representative of the photographer’s color career. Assignments from various magazines (Vogue, National Geographic, Life magazine) and commercial projects led him to photograph fashion (early 1960s), the Shah of Iran with his family (1964), keepers of French monuments (1988), the supermodel Kylie Bax (1997), and college cheerleaders (1989). He photographed in India and China, but also at home in New York, in Chicago, and along the Pacific Coast Highway. In 1968, Michelangelo Antonioni invited him to document the making of his film Zabriskie Point. Davidson also continued to pursue personal projects, e. g. photographing the Yiddish writer and Nobel Prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer (1972–75), the New York City subway (1980), and Katz’s Delicatessen (2004). Often staying on in a country after an official assignment, he documented Welsh coalfields, family holidays in Martha’s Vineyard, and travelled through Patagonia and Mexico.

"In 1960, after spending an intense year photographing a notorious Brooklyn street gang called "The Jokers", Bruce Davidson decided that he needed to get away from the tension, depression, and potential violence connected to that work. He took on a commission to photograph Marilyn Monroe during the making of John Houston's film The Misfits in the Nevada desert, and then traveled to London on a commission for The Queen magazine. Edited by Jocelyn Stevens, The Queen was a magazine devoted to

Highlighting Bruce Davidson's overlooked works from 1955 to 1993, this collection features 130 images that reveal his professional and personal evolution. The book is the culmination of a year-long project to sift through decades of contact sheets, showcasing Davidson's versatility through early assignments, intimate family moments, and unpublished color photographs from significant projects like East 100th Street and Campers. It offers a fresh perspective on his artistic journey and the depth of his photographic narrative.

The narrative centers on Bruce Davidson's journey in co-founding one of the US's enduring intentional communities, Sirius. It highlights his commitment, perseverance, and the collaborative spirit that shaped the community. Through late-night efforts and navigating interpersonal challenges, Davidson's dream and faith in a divine calling fostered a legacy that profoundly impacted many lives.

Bruce Davidson, a notable contributor to the Dallas Morning News, has earned the title of Limerick Laureate through his engaging limericks. His persistence led to a change in the publication's longstanding 'No Poetry' policy, allowing his work to shine in both the letters blog and print. This collection showcases his clever and humorous approach to poetry, reflecting his unique voice and creativity in the limerick form.