PHOTO:Bruce Davidson

Bruce Davidson was given his first camera in 1940, when he was just seven years old. It was, he says, “A primitive little box-type machine” and he used it to take photographs of his suburban neighbourhood, Oak Park, Illinois. “Most boys my age had a dog”, he says, laughing. “I had a camera”.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Fundación MAPFRE Archive

Bruce Davidson considers himself a humanist photographer, his life philosophy is based on his relationship with reality. His work is understood as the nexus between the world and the photographer and reveals his perception towards everything that surrounds him, his will and his values. All of which defines his work in greater measure than style or any particular themes he is undertaking. The retrospective at Fundación MAPFRE spans over 50 years of his career. Davidson’s work has become an image of his time, an intense era within the history of the United States, his style is characterized by attention to detail, but without falling into sentimental or compassionate excesses; he describes essential themes that have configured his life throughout the years with simplicity and poetic gaze. The decades encompassed by this exhibition were as intense for American photography as they were for the history of the country itself and, as a result of its force and power of visual penetration, Davidson’s work has become part of the iconography of his times. Even today it remains an ongoing source of inspiration for subsequent generations. The strength of Davidson’s art lies in the accumulation that arises from reiteration and in the juxtaposition of images which gradually shape the world of his subjects. We share with them a closeness which is only made possible through the charismatic presence of Davidson, who won their trust and was able to enter into their lives with remarkable ease, even with regard to his most conflict-ridden subjects. The surprisingly natural way in which these individuals present themselves reflects this cooperation and mutual commitment: a process of quest and discovery by the artist of which we are privileged spectators.

Info: Fundación MAPFRE, Casa Garriga i Nogués Exhibition Hall, Diputació 250, Barcelona, Duration: 28/5-28/8/16, Days & Hours: Mon 14:00-20:00, Tue-Sat 10:00-20:00, Sun 11:00-19:00, www.fundacionmapfre.org