Conversations with the Dead

In 1967 Danny Lyon spent 14 months embedded within six different Texas penitentiaries. With the backdrop of the Vietnam war, and the civil rights movement a few years previously, Lyon was a active proponent of liberal ideals. Having just finished his groundbreaking work, 'The Bikeriders', he was very socio-politically engaged and wanted to give a voice to the 'dregs' of society. Having persuaded the Texas prison authorities he was an avid supporter of their system, he was given unprecedented unlimited access to the facilities and the inmates, under the full cooperation of the authorities. Inside the walls of the prisons, he developed close relationships and friendships with several inmates, who opened up to him as a confidante. The photographs he took and the ephemera he collected (letters, official documents and drawings and writings by Billy McCune) during this time are assembled together in this influential photobook that reveals Lyon's compassionate and uncompromising view of the brutality of the US judicial system.

The original version of the book, in 1969, appeared as a small unfinished portfolio printed in the print shop of one of the prisons, 'Walls', and was entitled, Born to Lose. It was supervised by a convict called Smiley (James Renton), who was also one of its featured subjects (and subject of Lyon's nonfiction book, Like a Thief's Dream). It was first published as a hardback in 1971 by Holt, Rinehart and Winson. 

Having been out of print for over 40 years, Phaidon is now republishing this extraordinary inside view of Texas state prison, which Martin Parr and Gerry Badger acknowledge 'remains as powerful and as relevant as ever'. Its publication precedes an retrospective exhibition of Danny Lyon's work at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in Summer 2016, which will travel to the De Young Museum, San Francisco in Fall 2016 and then to another American institution (TBC).

The physical book itself will be a facsimile edition of the 1971 hardback original. The book will be updated with a new afterword by Danny Lyon describing what has happened to the inmates since the book was first published.

About the Author

Danny Lyon has long been considered one of the most original and influential documentary photographers and has produced numerous highly collectible photobooks, mounted solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC, and won two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Fellowship, and ten National Endowment for the Arts awards. Lyon divides his time between New York State and New Mexico. Other Danny Lyon photography books published by Phaidon include Danny Lyon: Memories of Myself (2009), Deep Sea Diver: An American Photographer's Journey in Shanxi, China (2011), and The Seventh Dog (2014).