Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Bruce Davidson began using a camera at age ten and later trained at Rochester Institute of Technology and Yale University. While stationed in France for the U.S. Army, he met Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the founders of Magnum Photos, the photographers’ cooperative that Davidson would later join. From 1961 until 1965, with the support of a 1962 Guggenheim Fellowship, he documented the civil rights movement in the South and North and gained intimate knowledge about the lives of those living under poverty and prejudice. His documentation of the civil rights movement earned him the first ever grant for photography from the National Endowment for the Arts. Davidson is best known for his East 100th Street project (Harvard University Press, 1970), which bore witness tothe dire social conditions on one block in East Harlem and was inspired by his earlier civil rights work. Based in New York City, Davidson continues to work as a freelance photographer.

Bruce Davidson. [Crowd surrounding the Reflecting Pool], August 28, 1963. Gelatin silver print, printed 2008. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (005.00.00)
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

Bruce Davidson. [Marchers at the Washington Monument], August 28, 1963. Gelatin silver print, printed 2008. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (006.00.00)
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

Bruce Davidson. [Marchers in front of the Lincoln Memorial], August 28, 1963. Gelatin silver print, printed 2008. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (007.00.00)
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos