Bruce Davidson

Throughout his career, Bruce Davidson's documentary photographs have been a celebrated and powerful depiction of the social climate of the United States. Davidson first picked up a camera at age 10, developing his craft on the streets of Chicago in an early exploration of city life. After graduating from Yale University, Davidson was drafted to join the army in a life-altering change of course: it was there that he met photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson and was invited to join Magnum Photos. Davidson's quiet demeanor works to his advantage; he once told the New York Times of his seeming invisibility as a photographer, "I was a shadow." In East 100th Street (1966-68), Davidson produced a shocking study of the poverty and discrimination on a block in Harlem, followed by an investigation of the urban underground in Subway (1980-85), another delicately captured essay on a particular American subculture.