One of the most original and influential documentary photographers of our time, Danny Lyon has chronicled in pictures, the lives of society’s outsiders, activists and underdogs in a stellar career stretching back to the early 1960s.
America’s foremost photo journalist is widely credited as inventing what was later called ‘The New Journalism’ – a practice whereby a photographer would spend weeks, in Lyon’s case sometimes months – living alongside their subjects.
Lyon famously joined a motorcycle gang, crossing the United States with them resulting in the photographic book The Bike Riders. He catalogued the lives of the Texas prison population the photos of which were published in Phaidon’s
Conversations with the Dead. But he also trained his lens on less explosive though no less interesting characters.
The two captivating prints we’re offering today were taken in 1963, when Lyon spent time in Uptown, a poor white area of Chicago nicknamed ‘Hillbilly Heaven’. With a borrowed Rolleiflex camera, he followed the inhabitants of Clifton Street, befriending the families who lived there and documenting their intimate moments - inside their homes and on the street.
Inside Kathy's Apartment - Danny Lyon
__Inside Kathy’s Apartment - silver gelatin print__ Sheet size: 280 x 355 mm (11 x 14 inches) Image size: 200 x 300 mm (7 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches) Print folder: 360 x 285 mm (14 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches) Printed in 2009 in an edition of 100 plus 5 artist's proofs. All copies are signed and numbered by Danny Lyon
Three Young Men - Danny Lyon
__Three Young Men – silver gelatin print__ Sheet size: 355 x 380 mm (14 x 11 inches) Image size: 230 x 230 mm (9 x 9 inches) Print folder: 360 x 285 mm (14 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches). Printed in 2009 in an edition of 100 plus 5 artist's proofs. All copies are signed and numbered by Danny Lyon
Both prints are sure to be in demand so if you like what you see don't hang around. You can
learn more about them, then buy them here. Lyon has had solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Philadelphia Museum of Art amongst others and is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships. You can read more about him and see his most recent work at
his great blog here.
