Don Chadwick 1961-2005

‘I look at a great tragedy, and I see in it a chance for survival. A photograph is a document of what happened, but I try to do it in a very refined way with the camera, composition, light, and shadow’.
—Don Chadwick

Don Chadwick is one of the foremost industrial designers of our times, focused on furniture and seating and the innovation of new production techniques. For decades, Chadwick has also been a prolific photographer, documenting his surroundings with a curious eye: the culture, growth, decay, and technical wonders around him, the wear and tear of manufactured materials, the shaping of Los Angeles, his home city, by social tensions and natural disasters.

In the tradition of Charles Eames and George Nelson, Chadwick has used photography as a form of design research, where specific relationships and aesthetics are reflected back into his production. In this sense, Don Chadwick Photography 1961–2005 presents a unique way of seeing, and fills in a missing chapter of global design history.