Untitled, Subway
1980, printed 2006
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
dye imbibition print
Dimensions
image: 38.4 × 57.15 cm (15 1/8 × 22 1/2 in.) sheet: 50.8 × 60.96 cm (20 × 24 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Michael and Jane Wilson
Accession Number
2012.137.35
Art Historical Context
Bruce Davidson's *Untitled, Subway* (1980, printed 2006) captures the raw pulse of New York City's underground world during a gritty era of urban transition. Part of Davidson's seminal *Subway* series, between 1979 and 1986, this immerses viewers in the multicultural tapestry of subway riders—strangers thrown together in the dim, rumbling cars. As a master of documentary photography, Davidson, a Magnum Photos member since 1958, used his Leica to document American life with unflinching humanism, blending street photography's spontaneity with profound empathy for the overlooked. Printed as a dy...
About the Artist
Bruce Davidson
Bruce Davidson, born on September 5, 1933, in Oak Park, Illinois, to a Jewish family of Polish origins, discovered photography at age ten when his mother built him a darkroom in their basement.) A Kodak competition win at 16 fueled his passion, leading him to work as a stock boy at a local camera shop. He studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology starting in 1951 under Ralph Hattersley, hon...