Demonstrations at an “all-white” swimming pool in Cairo, Illinois, 1962, © Danny Lyon, Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ
Danny Lyon: Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement, a selection of the photographer’s own visual memoir of his time in the civil rights movement, captures both brutal encounters and prayerful moments.
A giant of post-War documentary photography and film, Brooklyn, NY native Danny Lyon helped define a mode of photojournalism in which the picture-maker is deeply and personally embedded in his subject matter. A self-taught photographer and a graduate of the University of Chicago, Lyon began his career in the early 1960s as the first staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a national group of college students who joined together after the first sit-in by four African American college students at a North Carolina lunch counter. From 1963 to 1964, between arrests and police beatings, Lyon traveled the South and Mid-Atlantic regions documenting the Civil Rights Movement.
The experience with SNCC would shape and dictate the course of Mr. Lyon’s career. He has dedicated himself to chronicling social movements, working across mediums, including books, blogs, photography and documentaries. “I am a realist”, he writes, “meaning I believe in the power of the camera, documents and reality.”
This exhibition © Danny Lyon/ Courtesy Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ is organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions.
