Dan Budnik collection

Dan Budnik was born in 1933 in Mineola, New York on Long Island. He studied painting at the Art Students League in New York City in 1951 until he was drafted into the army in 1953. After his discharge from the army in 1955 Budnik returned to New York City, where he would remain based in until 1976, and bought a Leica IIIf camera at a pawnshop. He began work at Magnum Photos under Cornell Capa in 1957, first at a desk job and later as an assistant and photojournalist. In 1964 Budnik left Magnum to do freelance work on photo essays for publications such as Life, Look, Saturday Evening Post, New York Times Magazine, and more. He focused primarily on issues concerning the arts, human rights, and the environment; throughout his career he photographed the Civil Rights Movement, Native Americans in the Southwest, artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe and Willem de Kooning, and the Hudson River cleanup efforts. Budnik received the Honor Roll Award of the American Society of Media Photographers in 1998. He passed away in Tucson, Arizona on August 14, 2020.