Some of the most significant events of the 20th century, and the most important personalities, were captured by the camera of photographer Henri Dauman.
Forty of those iconic images are featured in “Henri Dauman: Looking Up,” an exhibit running Oct.1 through Nov. 13 at The Art Center Highland Park, 1957 Sheridan Road.
The exhibit is presented in partnership with the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Arbor Terrace Highland Park, which helped fund the cost of shipping the photographs.
“The work came yesterday and as we unloaded this crate of these photographs that you’ve seen reproduced throughout your life it pales in comparison to when you see them in person,” said curator Caren Rudman last month. “They’re mind-boggling. They are so beautifully photographed and exquisitely printed. They’re works of art.”
This is the first Midwest exhibition of Dauman’s work, which has only been exhibited three times before — once in Paris and twice in Los Angeles. Dauman is a Holocaust survivor who came to the U.S. alone when he was just 17.
“He worked day and night capturing what America meant to him,” said Rudman. “He documented the Civil Rights Movement, the pro-choice movement. That is part of this exhibit that is so impactful. Many of those issues are still relevant today.”
Dauman’s photos appeared in Life magazine, Newsweek, Time and other publications.
Rudman chose the photos that are in the exhibit, working with KP Projects Gallery in Los Angeles.
“I wanted a retrospective,” she said. “I didn’t want only his famous people. I didn’t want only his activism. I wanted it to be a full grasp of his life.”
The original plan was to have the 88-year-old photographer come to The Art Center for an appearance, but he is unable to fly because of COVID-19 restrictions.
The Art Center is also working to get permission to screen a documentary about Dauman’s amazing life and early tragedies which was created by his granddaughter Nicole Suerez and her husband filmmaker Peter Kenneth Jones. That documentary, also called “Henri Dauman: Looking Up,” can be viewed on Amazon Prime.
Suerez said she didn’t realize the extent of her grandfather’s work until she saw the first exhibition of his photographs in Paris in 2014. “I was amazed,” she said.
Shortly after that, Suerez visited Israel.
“I had known that my grandfather had survived the Holocaust but I didn’t know much of the details. He didn’t want to burden the family,” she explained.
While in Israel, Suerez discovered a two-hour interview that he had done in 1996.
“I was so moved by his testimony,” she recalled. It inspired her to tell her grandfather’s story. Suerez and her husband spent four years making the documentary.
Suerez knew that her grandfather’s father died in Auschwitz but she didn’t realize that both he and his mother escaped and hid in separate locations. They survived, but when they were back in their apartment after the war, Dauman’s mother died after a pharmacist gave her rat poison instead of her prescription. “It wasn’t just her,” Suerez learned. “It was many other Jewish people in the neighborhood as well.”
At the age of 13, Dauman became a ward of the state, living in orphanages. That was when he began asking a photographer to help teach him. “That was kind of his escape when he was in orphanages,” Suerez explained.
When he was 17, an uncle invited Dauman to come to America. He packed his camera and moved.
“He started taking odd jobs — at one point he was packing women’s underwear — but he eventually started seeking out work in photography,” Suerez related.
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His career eventually took off.
“I think it’s really important to share these stories,” Suerez said. “And show that the American Dream does exist. He went from being an orphan in Paris to coming to America by himself and he ended up having this amazing, illustrious career. He’s so full of life that you’d never know he had these great tragedies.”
“It’s such an American story,” said curator Rudman. “Not just because he’s photographing famous people in America but he had access to them after surviving the Holocaust.”
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.