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Danny Lyon

born 1942 Brooklyn, New York; lives Bernalillo, New Mexico

BiographyDanny Lyon is an American photographer and filmmaker known for his journalistic interest in socioeconomic, counter-cultural, and civil rights issues. Lyon’s images of protesters being arrested, outlaw biker gangs, and the destruction of historic neighborhoods, fits into the term New Journalism coined by the author Tom Wolfe. Born on March 16, 1942 in Brooklyn, New York, he studied history and philosophy at the University of Chicago, graduating in 1963. That same year, Lyon began working as a photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and became involved in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1967, Lyon started to create his own books, starting with a study of outlaw motorcyclists called The Bikeriders. During this period, he also became a member of the Chicago Outlaws motorcycle club and spent time traveling with them. In 1969, Lyon created The Destruction of Lower Manhattan, a compilation of photographs that illustrated the massive demolition throughout the Lower Manhattan area in 1967. Lyon then took on a project, Conversations with the Dead, that consisted of photographing six prisons from 1967 to 1968. Included with the photographs was text about the state of the situations. In 1969, Lyon was the recipient of the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for photography, and he also received the award for filmmaking in 1979. His solo exhibitions have taken place at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Lyon also founded the photography group Bleak Beauty. The group uses photography to express the realities of life. Lyon currently lives and works in rural New Mexico. Today, his works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. [artnet]

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