Time of Change: Bruce Davidson’s Civil Rights Photographs

Renowned photographer Bruce Davidson received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1962 to photograph the people and events of the Civil Rights Movement. This exhibition includes 31 stunning photographs of the heroic people he encountered. As witness to some of the most courageous and important events of the 1960’s, Davidson gives us a first hand account of these racially charged times. He also tenderly records the every day experience of the African American, from images of school houses to weddings. These images are captured in beautifully executed photographs which the Masur Museum of Art is proud to display during Black History Month.

Born in 1933, Davidson attended Rochester Institute of Technology and Yale University.  In October of 1955 his college thesis was published in LIFE Magazine, where he later worked as a freelance photographer.  IN 1957 he became a member of Magnum Photos and in 1966 Davidson was awarded the first grant in photography from the National Endowment for the Arts.  His photographs have been acquired by many major museums and private collectors worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the George Eastman House, The Smithsonian, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.

In association with Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York; and the artist

Also on view, “Troubling the Waters,” a film about the 1960’s struggle for Civil Rights in Northeast Louisiana.  Shown in association with the Northeast Louisiana Delta African American Heritage Museum.