David C. Turnley

David Turnley, the French-American winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Photography, is considered one of the greatest photographers of our time. Arriving in France in 1975 at the age of 19, he settled into a small room next to Notre-Dame de Paris and studied French at the Sorbonne. There, he met the greatest photographers of the century, from Henri Cartier-Bresson to André Kertész, who would become his major influences. Over the course of his career, David has worked in more than 90 countries, bearing witness to many of the defining moments of the past five decades : from Nelson Mandela and the struggle against Apartheid, to the revolutions in Eastern Europe, the student uprising in Tiananmen Square, the wars in the Middle East, and most recently, the war in Ukraine. His images, often published in leading international magazines, have helped shape our understanding of contemporary conflicts and sparked debate on humanitarian issues. Far from the conflict zones that have often marked his career, he has spent 50 years capturing the soul of the City of Light, which he describes as “his spiritual city”. His photographs offer an intimate and poetic portrait of Paris, testifying to the diversity of its inhabitants and the beauty of their daily lives.