Testament: Danny Lyon Photographs from the 1960s
"We dream of works of art and social realism that have the power to change men and transform society."— Danny Lyon, 1974
This exhibition presents a selection of works by photographer Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) from two of his early series: The Movement, which documents the civil rights movement in the South, taken while Lyon served as staff photographer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); and Conversations with the Dead, a groundbreaking group of photographs from the late 1960s detailing life inside the Texas penitentiary system. Lyon fully immersed himself in the lives of those he photographed, becoming demonstrator, advocate, participant, and friend. From memorializing heroic struggle to acknowledging the weight of living under threat of erasure or simply being forgotten, these images reflect Lyon's devotion, his belief in photojournalism as a vehicle of change, and his enduring commitment to bear witness.
Lyon was a philosophy student at the University of Chicago in 1962 when he hitchhiked to Cairo, Illinois, to photograph a civil rights demonstration. There, he met future congressman John Lewis, who suggested that Lyon travel south to Atlanta to document the sit-ins and demonstrations organized by the newly formed Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Lyon took his advice, fully embracing Lewis’s now legendary “good and necessary trouble.” His time with SNCC (pronounced “snick”) inspired The Movement, Lyon’s first photobook. Three photographs from this series appear here.
Taken over a period of fourteen months spent inside six different Texas prisons, the photographs from Lyon’s later Conversations with the Dead series reveal the harsh conditions of lives endured, not lived. Lyon’s titles reflect the erasure of identity, the reduction of a man to an inmate number, a sentence to be served, or a place in the line, regardless of actual guilt or innocence. In his introduction to the series, published as a photobook in 1971, Lyon remarks, “I tried with whatever power I had to make a picture of imprisonment as distressing as I knew it to be in reality and the few times that I doubted the wisdom of my attitude, I had only to visit someone I knew in his cell.” Indeed, photographs from this series have been used as evidence in hearings on prison reform.
The title of the exhibition, Testament, speaks to Lyon’s photographer-as-participant approach and the responsibility of the photojournalist to archive not only the awe-inspiring champions of social change, but also those most at risk of being forgotten. While The Movement memorializes bravery, heroism, and the struggle for equality, Conversations with the Dead documents a longing for humanity and serves as proof of existence.
Click the blue "Works in the Collection" button to view the individual works included in the exhibition.
Click here for a virtual gallery talk on Danny Lyon's work as staff photographer for SNCC.
This exhibition has been made possible by the Massey Charitable Trust.
