Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933). Homeless Transvestite, Subway, 1980. Dye-transfer print. 22-1/4 ...

Description

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Homeless Transvestite, Subway, 1980
Dye-transfer print
22-1/4 x 14-3/4 inches (56.5 x 37.5 cm) (image)
20 x 24 inches (sheet)
Notation I ST in wax pencil, top margin. Signed in pencil, verso.

"The Subway seemed like a train carrying cattle. The people seemed weighed down by their fate. I wanted to photograph these closed, hurt or indifferent faces."
BRUCE DAVIDSON

Steadily deteriorating ever since the opening of the first underground line in 1904, by the time Davidson embarked on his project in the spring of 1980, the subway had reached its lowest ebb. Emblazoned with graffiti and bathed in the unsettling fluorescence of cheap strobe lights, for most, it was a perilous place replete with violent gangs and the homeless. Davidson however found, in this hostile landscape of decay, a captivating aesthetic experience. He switched to color, from his usual medium of black & white film, in order to truly capture the unique atmosphere and the people he encountered within it, all steeped in "an iridescence like that I have seen in photographs of deep-sea fish".
MAGNUM PHOTOS


Estimate: $4,000 - $6,000.

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