“Go back into the subway and look beyond the graffiti. Lift up your heads and look around, see what Bruce has revealed
– the beauty in the subway population, the enormous amount of colour below and above ground, the varieties and
pleasures to be seen from the subway. The shrill insistence of the noise in our ears and of the graffiti to our eyes does
not end the catalogue of effects the subway has on our senses. Bruce Davidson has reopened and rewritten that catalogue
with this magnificent series of photographs. Light, colour, humanity, affection, and hope can be added to our
impressions of the New York subway system.” Henry Geldzahler
In 1980 Bruce Davidson began photographing the New York subway system, venturing regularly into this intoxicating,
sometimes dangerous subterranean world. At first Davidson photographed in black and white, but he soon realised
colour was necessary to depict the intensity of this graffiti-covered landscape. Originally published in 1986, this updated
Steidl edition of Subway is printed from new scans of Davidson’s Kodachrome slides and features additional
images.
Born in 1933, Bruce Davidson began photographing at the age of ten in Oak Park, Illinois. Davidson studied at the
Rochester Institute of Technology and Yale University, before being drafted into the army. After leaving military service
in 1957, Davidson freelanced for LIFE and in 1958 he became a member of Magnum. Davidson’s awards include a
Guggenheim fellowship and the first National Endowment for the Arts in Photography. Steidl has published Davidson’s
England / Scotland 1960 (2005), Circus (2007) and Outside Inside (2010).
Subway
von Bruce Davidson
