From the Civil Rights Movement to the Outlaws, distressing correctional facilities and beyond, Brooklyn-born self-taught photographer Danny Lyon would pioneer a movement that became known as New Journalism; the artist’s ability to immerse himself into seemingly closed worlds defining a career that has inspired many since the 1960s.
The Dominoes Players, Walls Unit, TDC, 1968
© Danny Lyon. Image Courtesy of Beetles+Huxley
In the early part of that defining decade, Lyon would join the marches and protests organised by Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), spending two years with the group as they fought for the Civil Rights Movement; between 1963 and 1967 he would immerse himself in the world of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle club — vilified at the time, he became close with its members and captured the spirit of freedom that would go on to be defined by Fonda and Hopper’s Easy Rider at the end of the decade.
Lyon’s landmark 1969 publication, Conversations with the Dead, brought together the images he captured during his time spent documenting Texas prisons in 1967-8; with a hangover from slavery (that thanks to Netflix’s 13th we know still exists to this day), these were tough times for inmates, and the photographer’s empathetic images convey the emotion stirred in him during this time: ‘I tried with whatever power I had to make a picture of imprisonment as distressing as I know it to be in reality’.
‘Danny Lyon has devoted his career to long-term photographic projects that highlight flaws in the American Dream,’ explains Giles Huxley-Parlour — director of Beetles + Huxley, where a retrospective of the artists work is set to open — ‘with particular reference to race, social justice and minority sub-cultures. We are pleased to bring an exhibition of his work to London at a time when American politics is front-page news, showing that many of the issues that Lyon has covered are longstanding and apparently yet to be resolved.’
The exhibition of Danny Lyon’s work runs at Beetles+Huxley from 26 October until 26 November.
Clifford Vaughs, SNCC Photographer, Arrested, Cambridge, Maryland, 1963
© Danny Lyon. Image Courtesy of Beetles+Huxley
The Line, Texas, Ferguson Unit, TDC, 1967
© Danny Lyon. Image Courtesy of Beetles+Huxley
Weight-lifters, Ramsey, 1968
© Danny Lyon. Image Courtesy of Beetles+Huxley
Route 12, Wisconsin, 1963
© Danny Lyon. Image Courtesy of Beetles+Huxley
Memorial Day Run, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1966
© Danny Lyon. Image Courtesy of Beetles+Huxley
Benny, Grand and Division, Chicago, 1967
© Danny Lyon. Image Courtesy of Beetles+Huxley
SNCC Staff Sit-in, Atlanta, Georgia, 1963
© Danny Lyon. Image Courtesy of Beetles+Huxley
Outlaw Camp, Elkhorn, Wisconsin, 1966
© Danny Lyon. Image Courtesy of Beetles+Huxley
Visiting Room, 1968
© Danny Lyon. Image Courtesy of Beetles+Huxley
