Manhattan Darkroom - Henri Dauman | The Story
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HENRI DAUMAN

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Henri Dauman is perhaps the most famous photographer you've ever heard of, at least not by name.

His journalist photographs are clear and thoughtful. For Life Magazine, The New York Times, Newsweek or Paris Match, he portrayed a changing America, torn apart by its exuberance and contradictions.

The work of Henri Dauman is atypical. He has witnessed important historical events that include the iconic images of Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, Jackie and John Kennedy or the protests for American civil rights, the uprising of Buddhist priests in the midst of the Vietnam War.

But his cinematographic eye dissects each subject. Henri Dauman is an engaging storyteller.

From Paris where he escapes the Shoah, to Manhattan where he reinvents himself, he is one of the most prominent photojournalists of the twentieth century.

Welcome to Henri Dauman's darkroom.

Henri Dauman Photographer
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Henri Dauman exhibition

THE INCREDIBLE TREASURE OF HENRI DAUMAN

From Montmartre to New York

Henri Dauman's photographic oeuvre offers the viewer a new vision of America. It depicts the key moment – the '60s – when new arts emerged, when an increasingly heterogeneous  society asserted itself, when the worlds of politics and media started to converge.

French photographer Henri Dauman emigrated to the United States in 1950. The seventeen-year old was fascinated by the architectural power and elegance of Manhattan's urban landscape. Throughout his career he would continue to make portraits of what came to be the only city that mattered to him: New York.

 

The pugnacious young man became a well-known photojournalist and collaborated with all the major magazines in America and Europe, all the while vigorously asserting his independence. Be it for Life, Paris Match, The New York Times or Epoca, his priority was to tell stories. Constantly acknowledging his debt to the grammar of cinema, he used sequences to accomplish the main goal of the press at the time: to have the photographic image be the main focal point.

 

The Manhattan Darkroom is more than a mere photography exhibition, it is a memorial to modern America.

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