Howard Greenberg presents Time of Change: Civil Rights Photographs, 1961-1965 Photographs from a critical moment in America’s history by renowned documentary photographer Bruce Davidson. Charged with the emotion, the powerful images in Time of Change: Civil Rights Photographs, 1961-1965 depict the struggle for justice and equality during a time of Freedom Rides, protests, marches, and police violence.

Time of Change is presented in conjunction with the current exhibition entitled 1963, which brings together more than 40 photographs depicting events from Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington D.C. to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

On May 25, 1961, Bruce Davidson joined a group of Freedom Riders traveling by bus from Montgomery, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi. The actions of these youths, in racially mixed groups, challenged segregation in bus seating in the South and led to violence and arrests. In 1962, Davidson received a Guggenheim Fellowship and continued documenting the era, including the five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, with Martin Luther King, Jr.

Davidson’s work depicts both critical historical events as well as poignant and intimate moments. His photographs have been described as “extraordinary for the depth of their feeling and their poetic mood” and the work in Time of Change is no exception.  A black woman held by two white police officers stands in front of a movie theater marquee sign that reads, “Damn the Defiant.” Martin Luther King, Jr. is shown with Mrs. King and Rosa Parks in a 1965 print. The day-to-day existence of Southerners is depicted in images where black nannies are caring for white children, three bridesmaids are dressed to the nines, boys are picking cotton, couples are dancing near a jukebox, and hecklers are taunting the Freedom Riders in Montgomery.

Time of Change: Civil Rights Photographs, 1961-1965 was published as a book by St. Ann’s Press in 2002 to enormous critical acclaim.

Bruce Davidson

In a career spanning more than half a century, Davidson is one of America’s most distinguished photographers. Born in 1933 in Oak Park, Illinois, he began taking photographs at the age of ten. He attended Rochester Institute of Technology and Yale University, where he studied with Josef Albers. He was later drafted into the army and stationed near Paris where he met Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the founders of the renowned cooperative photography agency Magnum Photos.

After his military service, Davidson worked as a freelance photographer for LIFE magazine and in 1959 became a member of Magnum. In 1963, The Museum of Modern Art in New York presented his early work in a solo exhibition, the first of several. Upon completion of his work on the American Civil Rights Movement, he received the first grant for photography from the National Endowment for the Arts. From 1966-68, Davidson spent two years documenting the neglected block of East 100th Street in Manhattan. In 1980, he explored the distressed New York City subway. From 1991-95 he photographed the landscape and layers of life in Central Park. More recently, he followed this exploration of nature to Paris, where he photographed the relationship between nature and urban life and now continues this quest in Los Angeles.

His work has been exhibited at many major institutions including The Museum of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography in New York, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.  He has received many grants, awards, and fellowships in addition to an honorary doctorate in fine arts from the Corcoran School of Art and Design.  His photographs have appeared in numerous publications and his work is the subject of many books. He lives in New York City.

Venue: Howard Greenberg Gallery, 41 East 57th Street, Suite 1406, New York.

Open: 6th June - 30th August 2013

Opening night: Thursday 6th June 6-8pm

For more information please visit: www.howardgreenberg.com.