Danny Lyon

Who is Danny Lyon?

Danny Lyon is a self-taught American photographer and filmmaker. He was born in 1942 in Brooklyn, New York and is the son of Russian-Jewish mother Rebecca Henkin and German-Jewish father Ernst Fredrick Lyon. Danny was raised in Kew Gardens, Queens and went on to study history at the University of Chicago, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1963.

That same year, he published his first photographs working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. His pictures appeared in The Movement, a documentary book about the Southern Civil Rights Movement.

Later, Lyon began creating his own books. His first, was a study of outlaw motorcyclists in the collection The Bikeriders, where Lyon did more than just photograph motorcyclists in the American Midwest from 1963 to 1967. Additionally, he also became a member of the Chicago Outlaws motorcycle club and traveled with them, sharing their lifestyle. According to Lyon himself, the photographs were "an attempt to record and glorify the life of the American bikerider." The series was immensely popular and influential in the 1960s and 1970s.