Photography: Images of a Dark Century

A master photojournalist is celebrated in Texas

Like Robert Capa and Margaret Bourke-White, Carl Mydans helped to transform American photojournalism from a source of inert head shots and ceremonious poses into a supple narrative art. As a staff photographer for LIFE, Mydans was present and accounted for at the darkest moments of a dark century: the Depression, World War II, Korea and Viet Nam. The retrospective of his work at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth offers a chance to review his pictures uncoupled from the periods they defined and the magazine pages they were designed to serve. A museum show is the acid test for photojournalism....

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