Like a Thief's Dream

Danny Lyon was born in Brooklyn. While studying history at the University of Chicago, Lyon joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee as their first staff photographer. One of the best-known photojournalists today, Lyon has produced eleven books of photography and twelve nonfiction films. His books include Indian Nations (Twin Palms, 2002), Knave of Hearts (Twin Palms, 1999), a memoir, Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement (University of North Carolina, 1992), Merci Gonaives (Bleak Beauty, 1988), an account of the 1986 Haitian revolution, and Conversations with the Dead (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), the first book by a photojournalist inside the American prison system. Lyon recently republished his second book, the acclaimed The Destruction of Lower Manhattan, with powerHouse Books. He has received a Rockefeller Fellowship in filmmaking, Guggenheim fellowships for photography and filmmaking, and numerous fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. His photographs are in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Corcoran Gallery of Art and The Library of Congress, Washington, DC; as well as other museums throughout the world. Lyon lives in Ulster County, New York and Sandoval County, New Mexico.