Danny Lyon

American, born 1942

BiographyDanny Lyon (b. 1942, Queens, NY) is an American photographer and filmmaker who is highly regarded for his participatory approach to photojournalism and his photo-essays that call attention to socioeconomic, counter-cultural, and civil rights issues. A graduate of the University of Chicago, where he received a BA in History in 1963, Lyon began his career photographing (and participating in) civil rights demonstrations in the segregated south as the first staff photographer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1962-63. The resulting series of images were initially used for SNCC fliers and posters and then published in Lyon’s first book, The Movement (1964). Upon returning to Chicago in 1965, he joined the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club and began work on his influential series The Bikeriders (published 1968).

After completing The Bikeriders, Lyon moved to New York City in 1967 and, while preparing the book for publication, began his series The Destruction of Lower Manhattan (published 1969) documenting the demolition of the historically working-class neighborhood in which he lived. He then embarked on a Texas trip later that year, and while attending a rodeo in Huntsville, TX, some of the inmate attendees suggested that he photograph Texas prisons. Over the next fourteen months, he photographed in seven of the Texas Department of Corrections’ thirteen prisons resulting in the publication Conversations with the Dead (published 1971). The people he met and his experience living in the American Southwest inspired many subsequent photographic series and films on tattoo artists, immigration issues, and poverty. Today, Lyon continues to make work and engage with social and political issues, most recently filming and photographing the Occupy movements in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008.

Lyon has been the subject of major traveling retrospectives organized by the Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany with Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ (1990-91); the Menil Collection, Houston (2012); and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco with the Whitney Museum of American Art (2016-17). His work can be found in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Art Institute of Chicago; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Cleveland Museum of Art; and the Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany; among many others.

Person TypeIndividual

Terms