PhotoLit - data bank on photographic literature

Text engl. - Original edition: Paris: Centre national de la photographie 1984 (Photo poche).

nur Kurztitelaufnahme 11.1995

Text engl. - Other edition: First edition 1970; expanded reprint 2003.

Nur Kurztitelaufnahme 09.2000.

Nur Kurztitelaufnahme 10.2006.

Text engl. - "Davidson, unlike other photographers before him, embedded himself in the world of his subjects for extended periods, he even joined a circus in 1958 in order to get the right pictures, the results of which formed themselves into series of powerful photo-essays. "Brooklyn Gang" and "East 100th Street" are perhaps his two most famous, and are the results of months and months living with both a gang of youths on Coney Island, and the inhabitants of a run-down tenement block in Harlem, New York. Through a combination of familiarity and his own visual poetry, Davidson brought these, and other subjects, to life in the many books and exhibitions that resulted from these projects. - Opening in May 2011, our exhibition will focus on several of these key photo-essays, namely, The Circus, Brooklyn Gang, Civil Rights Movement, East 100th Street, England/Scotland/Wales - 1960, and Central Park. - Davidson is mainly interested in documenting the struggles and triumphs of people as they go through their lives - the American Dream laid bare. His photographs are powerful, truthful, sometimes brutal, and often breathtaking. Through this honesty Davidson gives his subjects a voice and a platform to be remembered by, but he also finds the process personally satisfying. As he once said: 'My pictures are not escapes from reality, but a contemplation of reality, so that I can experience life in a deeper way.'" (http://www.chrisbeetles.com/exhibitions/bruce-davidson.html; seen 02,2018).

„Bruce Davidson ist mit sozialkritischen Reportagen bekannt geworden und deshalb überrascht es, wenn er einen Band mit Porträts von Prominenten herausbringt. Dass diese Arbeiten allerdings keine gewöhnlichen" Glamourfotos sind, sondern authentische AÜfnahmen, die Umwelt, Leben und Bewegung mit einbeziehen, dies überrascht schon weniger. In seinem Band finden sich Aufnahmen von Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Robert Kennedy, Brad Pitt u.v.a.“ (Kat. Lindemanns Fotobücher, 1. Nachtrag zu Kat. 25, Stuttgart, Frühjahr 1999).

Text dt., engl. - “Zwischen 1966 und 1968 entstand diese soziale, zeitgenössische Porträtstudie des ‚Magnum‘-Photographen Davidson im New Yorker Stadteil Spanish Harlem. Sie zeigt überwiegend schwarze junge Amerikaner, die inmitten unglaublicher Perspektivlosigkeit zu überleben und sich zu behaupten suchen.” (Kat. Lindemanns Fotobücher, 1. Nachtrag zu Kat. 25, Stuttgart, Frühjahr 1999). - Nur Kurztitelaufnahme 05.1999.

Text engl.

Nur Kurztitelaufnahme 05.2000.

Text dt.

Nur Kurztitelaufnahme 06.2003. - Check entry.

Text engl. - First edition thus, first printing, this being St. Ann's Press expanded reissued edition, with 25 images added by Davidson that were not included in the original edition published by The Harvard University Press (Cambridge, Mass., 1970). Also published as a limited edition (with print). Limited deluxe slipcased edition of 100 copies, hand-numbered and signed in black ink on the half-title page by Davidson, with an original gelatin silver print, image size 7 5/8 x 7 3/8 inches, paper size 10 x 8 inches (hand-numbered and signed in pencil on verso by Davidson, print edition 100). The print is housed in a separate cloth portfolio, in a beveled window overmatt for presentation (held in place within the portfolio by 4 ribbon corners. Both the book and matted photograph (in cloth portfolio) fit inside the larger brown cloth slipcase (12 5/8 x 11 5/8 x 1 3/4 inches), with title stamped in black. - Photographs, Preface and Afterword by Bruce Davidson. Foreword by Mildred Feliciano. Includes an interview with Bruce Davidson by Barney Simon, excerpted from Swiss "du“ magazine," March 1969. Beautifully printed on heavy stock fine paper by Trifolio, Verona. - From the publisher: "For two years in the 1960s, Bruce Davidson photographed one block in East Harlem. He went back day after day, standing on sidewalks, knocking on doors, asking permission to photograph a face, a child, a room, a family. Through his skill, his extraordinary vision, and his deep respect for his subjects, Davidson's portrait of the people of East 100th Street is a powerful statement of the dignity and humanity that is in all people. Long out of print, this volume is a reissue of the classic book of photographs originally published in 1970 and recently included in The Book of 101 Books. This reprint includes over 20 new images not included in the original edition." Vince Aletti: "Davidson's strobe doesn't dispel the gloom or glamorize the ruin of the apartments, alleyways, storefronts, and rubble-strewn lots where people stopped to pose for him, but the rapport he established allows those people to surrender to the camera with their humanity intact." Bruce Davidson: "Like the people who live on the block, I love and hate it and I keep going."

Photographs and text by Bruce Davidson. Interview with Bengie by Emily Haas. This second printing was limited to 2000 case-bound copies. From the publisher: "During the summer of 1959, Bruce Davidson followed a loosely knit "gang" of teenagers around Brooklyn, New York. His camera captured these children of the James Dean generation in both private and public moments at the soda fountain, the tattoo parlor, Coney Island, and late night basement dance parties. The beautiful adolescents that fill the pages of this book exude a cool sensuality which came by way of the young Brando and Dean, and traveled from American shores around the world. Davidson has created an exquisite photographic elegy for a time when, in retrospect, we all seemed young." (Antiq. Borelli, Abuquerque, NM).

This is an expanded version of the book that was originally published in 1986. Photographs, text, a technical note and edited by Bruce Davidson. Foreword by the original graffiti artist Fred Brathwaite (aka Fab 5 Freddy). [New] Introduction by Arthur Ollman. Original essays from the 1986 edition by Bruce Davidson and Henry Geldzahler. Designed by Paul McMenamin at SPINE. Printed by drukkerij Mart. Spruijt bv, The Netherlands, from separations made by John Robinson. - From the publisher: "Since the ground was broken, New York City's subway system has been the stuff of legend as well as a source of inspiration and fear. Originally published in 1986, this dark, democratic environment provided the setting for photographer Bruce Davidson's first extensive series in color. Subway riders are set against a gritty, graffiti-strewn background, displayed in tones Davidson described as "an iridescence like that I had seen in photographs of deep-sea fish." Never before has the subway been portrayed in such detail, revealing the interplay of its inner landscape and out vistas. The images include lovers, commuters, tourists, families, and the homeless. From weary straphangers to languorous ladies in summer dresses to stalking predators, Davidson's compassionate vision illuminates the stubborn survival of humanity. From the spring of 1980 to 1985, Davidson explored and shot six hundred miles of subway tracks. In his own words, "I wanted to transform this subway from its dark, degrading, and impersonal reality into images that open up our experience again to the color, sensuality, and vitality of the individual souls that ride it each day." (Antiq. Borrelli, Albuquerque NM, 02.2005). - [Text at Schaden.com:] "In the late 20'th century, before Messrs Giuliani and Bloomberg reduced it to a sanitised, litigious pastiche of its former self, New York City was one of the most exhilarating, creative and downright dangerous cities on earth. Riding the subway armed with his camera in the early 1980's, Bruce Davidson captured this vibrant and violent era in his photographs - when hip hop culture was first emerging and graffiti was spread across the city via the subway lines like a hieroglyphic virus. Long out of print, this new edition of ‘Subway’ includes over 40 unpublished shots and a foreword by Fab Five Freddy, a legendary figure in NY street and club lore. Filled with moody and intimate shots of bankers. beggars, fly-boys, hookers and hoods as they traverse the city, this book is a journey through New York's dark heart." (From: Wallpaper 04.04).

Profusely illustrated with reproductions of Davidson's penetrating photographs. - Nur Kurztitelaufnahme 06.2006.