AT A GLANCE
- Known for
- Korean War photographs for LIFE and the book This Is War!, and seventeen years of photographs of Pablo Picasso
- Worked in
- Mostly black and white; color in later books
- Camera
- Leica rangefinders with Nikkor lenses, later the Nikon F and modified Leica M3D cameras
- Also
- Marine combat photographer in World War II; his archive is at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin
- Start with
- This Is War! A Photo-Narrative in Three Parts (Harper, 1951)
David Douglas Duncan (1916–2018) was an American photojournalist. He photographed three wars, most famously Korea for LIFE magazine, and his pictures focused on the faces of the men who fought. From 1956 until 1973 he was also a close friend of Pablo Picasso and photographed him at work and at home.
The story
In 1950 David Douglas Duncan was in Tokyo, working for LIFE. A Japanese photographer, Jun Miki, made a snapshot of him with a borrowed lens from a local company, Nippon Kogaku. At first Duncan called it a “Japanese Sonnar.” Then he saw the enlargement. “It's great! Very sharp! Take me to the company at once!” he said, as Nikon tells the story.
At the factory he bought Nikkor lenses for his Leica on the spot. Then he took them to the front in Korea. The war had started on 25 June, and he was the nearest LIFE photographer. Born in Kansas City in 1916, he had been a Marine combat photographer in World War II and was on the USS Missouri for the Japanese surrender. “I knew what I was looking at, and I knew what I had felt during World War II,” he said.
So he stayed with the Marines and looked at faces, not battles. On No-Name Ridge near the Naktong River, Captain Ike Fenton learned that his company was almost out of ammunition. Duncan photographed him at that moment. The picture is counted among the great American combat photographs. In 1951 the Korean pictures became the book This Is War!, and the money from it went to the widows and children of Marines killed in Korea.
But war was not his only subject. In 1956, on the suggestion of his friend Robert Capa, he rang the bell at La Californie, Picasso's villa in Cannes. Jacqueline Roque led him upstairs, and there was the painter in his bath. “Here's a guy in his old-fashioned bathtub. He never seen me in his life before,” Duncan remembered. Picasso let him stay. For seventeen years, until the artist's death in 1973, Duncan photographed him painting, working and playing with his children.
Once Duncan asked Picasso which of his paintings he liked best. Picasso held up his hand and asked which finger was his favorite. Years later Duncan gave the same answer about his Korean pictures. “It's all a part of him. So these photographs are all a part of me,” he said in 1990. Sharp lenses had started it all. What he wanted from a picture was something else: “I'm very subjective as a war photographer. I want to break your heart.”
The work
- 1916Born on 23 January in Kansas City, Missouri
- 1938Graduates from the University of Miami
- 1945Photographs the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri as a Marine officer
- 1950Buys Nikkor lenses in Tokyo and covers the Korean War for LIFE
- 1951Publishes This Is War!
- 1956Meets Pablo Picasso at La Californie in Cannes
- 1968Photographs the siege of Khe Sanh and publishes I Protest!
- 1996Gives his archive to the Harry Ransom Center in Austin
- 2018Dies on 7 June in Grasse, France, aged 102
Lessons
Look at faces. In Korea Duncan showed what the men felt. The face of one tired captain told more than a wide view of the battle.
Know your subject. He had been a Marine himself, so he understood what he saw and the Marines trusted him.
Stay quiet and stay long. With Picasso he worked for days with very few words, and the friendship lasted seventeen years.
Try this: photograph one person while they work, for a whole afternoon. Do not give directions and talk as little as you can. Keep only the frames where the face shows what they feel.
Gear
Leica rangefinder: in 1950 in Tokyo he bought Nikkor lenses for his Leica and took them to Korea. Nikon says these photographs, published in LIFE, made the Nikkor name known around the world.
Nikkor lenses: according to Nikon, he chose a 5cm f/1.5 and a 13.5cm lens.
Nikon F: in 1965 Nikon gave him the 200,000th Nikon F, in thanks for his use of the camera.
Leica M3D: in Vietnam he used two specially modified Leica M3D cameras. A quiet shutter also let him photograph Picasso without disturbing him.
Books
This Is War! A Photo-Narrative in Three Parts (Harper, New York, 1951). His most important book, about 164 large pages made almost only of pictures. It follows the Marines in Korea in three parts: the fight near the Naktong River, the battle for Seoul and the hard winter march out from the Chosin Reservoir. There is little text, so the faces carry the story. The money from the book went to the widows and children of Marines killed in Korea. Start here if you want to understand his war work.
I Protest! (New American Library, 1968). A small paperback of 125 pages about the siege of Khe Sanh in Vietnam, where Duncan lived with the trapped Marines. Here he gave up being neutral and openly criticized the American government's handling of the war. It was printed in 250,000 copies and sold for one dollar, with the money going to families of men killed at Khe Sanh. A rare example of a photographer using a cheap book as a public protest.
Picasso & Lump: A Dachshund's Odyssey (Bulfinch, 2006). A short book of about 100 pages with Duncan's photographs from 1957. Lump was Duncan's own small dachshund. On a visit to La Californie he met Picasso and stayed with him for years, and he appears in 15 of Picasso's 44 studies of Las Meninas. The book shows the dog, the painter and Jacqueline at home. A warm, easy way into his Picasso work, good for younger readers too.
Photo Nomad (W. W. Norton, 2003). A 464-page photo autobiography that covers his whole life in pictures, in black and white and color. It has his war work from World War II, Korea and Vietnam, his LIFE covers and pictures of civilians, but also portraits of Picasso, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Ava Gardner, and landscapes from Afghanistan, Ireland and Provence. Captions, letters and short texts tell the stories behind the photographs. The best single book for an overview.
In his words
“I always photographed Marines. I knew what they would do if I got hit. They'd get me out of there.”
Discover how photographer David Douglas Duncan overcame the obstacles to gain access to Pablo Picasso's private studio, capturing iconic images of the artist at work and providing a rare insight into the creative process of one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.