E-Photo
Issue #242  6/17/2018
 
War Photojournalist David Douglas Duncan Dies in France at 102 Years Old

By Alex Novak

U.S. Marines, Naktong River, Korea, by David Douglas Duncan.
U.S. Marines, Naktong River, Korea, by David Douglas Duncan.

David Douglas Duncan, perhaps the most famous war photojournalist of the 20th-century, died June 7th in France at the age of 102. He had survived—although wounded several times—many wars and violent actions, including WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. A former marine himself, he told Terry Gross on the PBS radio program Fresh Air in 1990, "I'm very subjective as a war photographer. I want to break your heart."

Duncan was born in Kansas City, MO, on Jan. 23, 1916. He became a Marine officer and combat photographer in World War II, covering the Pacific theater. He was aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in 1945 during the Japanese surrender to Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo Bay.

After WWII, he went to Palestine for LIFE magazine to cover fighting between the Arabs and Jews before the founding of Israel in 1948.

He'd been back in Japan for LIFE magazine in 1950 doing a story on Japanese culture when the Korean War began. As he told Gross in her interview with him: "Since I was the nearest LIFE photographer, it was logical I should go there. But the lucky thing was my experience. So that when I started to shoot, I started from a running start. I didn't have to be indoctrinated. I knew what I was looking at, and I knew what I had felt during World War II. So I tried to translate that feeling into photographs that would reveal some of the feelings of the men in front of me."

His work was well published in LIFE Magazine. Besides his war coverage, he photographed subjects in the art and political worlds, including Picasso (he published eight books on the artist) and Richard Nixon. In 1968, he covered the political conventions of both U.S. parties, and captured the private moment of Richard Nixon writing his acceptance speech.

"This Is War!"--a collection of his Korean War images--is considered one of the best books about war photography. Duncan also covered the war in Vietnam, which he opposed. His collection of photos about the defense of the Marine base at Khe Sanh was called "I Protest!"

Duncan donated his archive to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas in 1996.

Duncan is survived by his wife, Sheila Macauley.

Novak has over 47 years experience in the photography-collecting arena. He is a long-time member and formally board member of the Daguerreian Society, and, when it was still functioning, he was a member of the American Photographic Historical Society (APHS). He organized the 2016 19th-century Photography Show and Conference for the Daguerreian Society. He is also a long-time member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, or AIPAD. Novak has been a member of the board of the nonprofit Photo Review, which publishes both the Photo Review and the Photograph Collector, and is currently on the Photo Review's advisory board. He was a founding member of the Getty Museum Photography Council. He is author of French 19th-Century Master Photographers: Life into Art.

Novak has had photography articles and columns published in several newspapers, the American Photographic Historical Society newsletter, the Photograph Collector and the Daguerreian Society newsletter. He writes and publishes the E-Photo Newsletter, the largest circulation newsletter in the field. Novak is also president and owner of Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, a private photography dealer, which sells by appointment and has sold at exhibit shows, such as AIPAD New York and Miami, Art Chicago, Classic Photography LA, Photo LA, Paris Photo, The 19th-century Photography Show, Art Miami, etc.