Being Close and Staying Longer
Photographs by Bruce Davidson
from the Columbia College Permanent Collection
August 30 – October 20
Columbia College Greg Hardwick & Sidney Larson Galleries
Brown Hall: 1001 Rogers St., Columbia MO 65216
Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
facebook.com/CCgalleries
Colloquium & Reception: Thursday, October 14 • 4 to 6 p.m.
In 2018, the Columbia College Department of Visual Arts & Music (stewarded by Associate Professor Scott McMahon) accepted one of the most significant donations of art in our history. We were gifted with 365 photographs taken by world-renowned documentary photographer Bruce Davidson for our permanent collection.
“Being Close and Staying Longer” features Davidson photographs from three major thematic bodies of work he created between 1959 and 1970 (East 100th St., Time of Change and Brooklyn Gang) in the Sidney Larson Gallery. The Greg Hardwick Gallery features publications, a video interview with the artist, two photographs by W. Eugene Smith (one of Davidson’s mentors), as well as poems written by Columbia College creative writing students using Davidson’s photographs as inspiration.
“We can all learn a lot from these photographs. Bruce Davidson documents his subjects with sensitivity, empathy, and honesty. He records the complexity of humanity not just through the lens of a curious observer or bystander, but with his heart soul.” — Scott McMahon
The Larson and Hardwick galleries display professional work by nationally and internationally known artists working in all mediums, and by the outstanding Columbia College students. The galleries are under the direction of Associate Professors Bo Bedilion (Hardwick) and Scott McMahon (Larson).
Please click here for a recap on the colloquium event.
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Bruce Davidson has been interested in photography since age ten. While attending the Rochester Institute of Technology and Yale University, he continued studying photography and was particularly inspired by the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson and W. Eugene Smith. After military service he worked for LIFE in 1957 before joining Magnum, the cooperative photo agency founded in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, George Rodger and Chim (David Seymour). In his early work, Davidson typically selected subjects who were unusual or isolated from society, including a widow living in a Paris garret, a dwarf clown and a teenage Brooklyn gang.
He received a Guggenheim Fellowship to photograph events and figures of the civil rights movement, and in 1967 received the first photography grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts. He spent the next two years photographing one city block in New York City’s East Harlem, publishing this work as East 100th Street (1970), one of his many books. In the early 1980s, Davidson made an extensive color photographic survey of New York’s subways; more recently he has worked in Central Park. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Times Magazine, LIFE, Vogue, Esquire and other publications worldwide, and his work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center, the National Museum of American Art, ICP and other museums.
Bruce Davidson documents the lives of his subjects with sensitivity and sympathy. His photographs express his own desire to observe, understand and reveal the complexity of people and their communities. He transforms intimately observed details and events into stories about individuals’ lives that reflect concerns and emotions common to all.
Accommodations
- Columbia College main campus is located at 1001 Rogers St. View the campus map.
- Free parking is available around campus.
- Traveling from out of town? Contact the Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau at www.visitcolumbiamo.com or (800) 652-0987.