BRUCE DAVIDSON (* 1933)
‘The Dwarf, Palisades Amusement Park’, New Jersey 1958

Start price: €2.600

Estimate: € 5.000–6.000

Vintage silver print

34,9 x 23 cm

Photographer's agency credit stamp and handwritten numerical notations on the reverse

At the time of his first Magnum commissions, Bruce Davidson was inspired to undertake an independent project by Magnum’s archivist Sam Holmes, a circus enthusiast. The 24-year-old photographer spent several weeks with the Clyde Beatty Circus troupe, named for its main protagonist, a tamer of big cats. Davidson’s main focus was not on the shows but rather on the strenuous daily life of individual artists. He developed a particularly strong bond with the clown Jimmy Armstrong, a person of short stature. The strength of character and the loneliness Davidson saw in the »Little Man’s« personality impressed him greatly. The present, rarely offered image, shows Davidson’s unerring instinct for touching moments whose poetry unfolds especially in their contingency and fleetingness.