Lionel Delevingne: Difference between revisions

This article currently links to a large number of disambiguation pages (or back to itself). Please help direct these ambiguous links to articles dealing with the specific meaning intended. Read the FAQ. (August 2014)

Lionel Delevingne (born France) is an author, journalist, and photojournalist who has lived in the United States since 1975. According to Veronique Prevost of Figaro/Journal Francais, "Delevingne is beholden to the lineage of great picture journalists, and his talent, if not his inspiration, makes you think of the master of the genre, Cartier-Bresson."^[1]

Delevingne is particularly known for his photographs of the anti-nuclear power/safe energy movement, chronicling the Seabrook nuclear power plant occupations in the 1970s, as well as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. He has won a number of photography awards, and his work has been featured on covers including New Age, Mother Jones, Washington Post Magazine, and Irish Times. Many of his photos have been published in books about the environment and the safe energy movement, and has co-authored several books.^[2] In 2014 he authored the book To the Village Square: From Montague to Fukushima, 1975-2014 on Nouveau Monde Press in collaboration with Prospecta Press.^[3]

Lionel Delevingne was born and raised in France. He studied education at Ecole Normale (ENI Paris), before moving permanently to the United States in 1975.^[2] He founded the publishing company Delevingne & Associates in 1980.^[1]

After settling in Northampton, Massachusetts, and began working as a writer/photographer for publications such as the Valley Advocate, in these times focusing much of his attention on American socio-political currents.^[2]

He became particularly known for his documentary photographs of the anti-nuclear power/safe energy movement. He provided extensive coverage of the Clamshell Alliance occupations of the Seabrook nuclear power plant site in the 1970s, and also chronicled the aftermath of destruction and protest following major accidents at Three Mile Island in the United States, Chernobyl, Ukraine, and Fukushima, Japan. He published his photos both internationally and in the United States, including in Le Sauvage, one of the first ecological magazines in France.^[3]

Many of his photos have been published in books about the safe energy movement, including No Nukes by Anna Gyorgy (South End Press, 1979), and in the 2014 book To The Village Square.^[2] A photo essay of his work on Chernobyl appeared on the website of Mother Jones in 2009.^[4] According to Veronique Prevost of Figaro/Journal Francais, "Delevingne is beholden to the lineage of great picture journalists, and his talent, if not his inspiration, makes you think of the master of the genre, Cartier-Bresson."^[1]

A regular contributor to the New York Times travel section among others, Delevingne travelled extensively beyond his New England home to locations such as Greenland, Australia and the Amazon, as well as numerous European countries. He went on to co-author several books.^[5][6] The first was Northampton: Reflections on Paradise in 1988, followed shortly after by Franco-American Viewpoints.^[2]

Delevingne and his work have been covered extensively in both US and European media. His photojournalism has been featured on the covers of Newsweek, the Washington Post Magazine, the travel section of the New York Times, Die Zeit Dossiers, Mother Jones, and In These Times, and inside-the-book magazine and newspaper assignments for National Geographic, Le Figaro, Photo in France, Irish Times Sunday Magazine, the Jerusalem Post, Vanity Fair, Yankee Magazine, and others.^[7] He has been featured in publications such as Tag Spiegel in Germany, and French outlets including Photo Revue, Digraphe, Le Photographe, Radio Baie des Anges, l'Almanach de la Photo, Radio Bleue, and France Inter. In the United States, he has been featured in outlets such as Village Voice, Boston Globe, Photo District News, Boston Phoenix, New England Journal of Photography, Valley Advocate, Albany Times-Union, WFCR , WFUV, and WQBK.

His photographs have appeared in books published by Simon & Schuster, Doubleday, South End Press, Island Press, and on the covers of Political Protest and Cultural Revolution (University of California Press, 1991), Appeal to Reason: 25 Years of In These Times (Seven Stories Press, 2002), Amber Waves and Undertow (University of Oklahoma Press, 2009), and Beyond Vietnam (University of Massachusetts Press, 2009).^[7]

His academic clients have included Harvard Graduate School of Education, Mount Holyoke College, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Southern New Hampshire University, Rudolf Steiner School, The Collegiate, the Nieman Center for Journalism at Harvard University, College of the Holy Cross, Phillips Academy Andover, Northfield Mt. Hermon School, and Phillips Exeter Academy. He has done commercial work for institutions and corporations including Boston Children's Hospital, Panasonic, Shriner's Hospitals for Crippled Children, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance, National Consumer Cooperative Bank, Foundation for National Progress, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Holland America Line, and several stock photo houses.^[8]

In 2012 he and Steve Turner co-authored the Drylands, a Rural American Saga, published by Nebraska University Press.^[9] In 2014 he authored the book To the Village Square: From Montague to Fukushima, 1975-2014 on Nouveau Monde Press.^[3] Mark Kramer, author and the former founding director of the Nieman Program's class on Narrative Journalism at Harvard, called the book "exquisite," stating "To open it is to participate, comprehend and appreciate the extensive, heroic, multi-decade struggle against global damage by nuclear power plants.  It celebrates the many concerned and sensible citizens who have built successful, continuing and urgent movements against the high-handed and short-sighted private developers of these risky plants."^[3]

Throughout his career Delevingne has received a number of grants, notably from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development (France) from the French Minister of Culture, as well as the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy. He has also won achievement awards from the Council for the Advancement (CASE) and Support of Education and Art Direction Magazine.^[10]

The following is an incomplete list of presentations and lectures be Delevingne, as well as location:

• "Le Mois de la Photo" - Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris
• "Ten French Photographers" - Arles Festival, France,
• "French Contemporary Photography" - New York University, New York
• "To The Village Square: An Experiment in American Democracy (with Anna Gyorgy)" - University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Université D'Angers/Colloque Internationale de la Francophonie; Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts; Mt. Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts; Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts; Association of Picture Professionals, Boston, Massachusetts; Currier Museum, New Hampshire University; World Congress of French Studies (CIEF), Strasbourg, France; American International College; Emma Willard School

His work is in the permanent collections of notable institutions including Fnac Galleries in Paris, France, SUNY Arts Center in Albany, New York, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, Lowell City Library in Lowell, Massachusetts, the Smith College Art Museum and Forbes Library in Northampton, Massachusetts. The Dubois Library Special Collections at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst has an extensive archive of his photographs.^[11]

The following is an incomplete list of Delevingne's solo exhibitions, along with where the exhibitions took place:

• 2012: "To the Village Square, An Experiment in American Democracy." Dubois Library, Special Collections, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, January-May, 2012^[2]
• 2013: "Drylands, a Rural American Saga": Elusie Gallery, Easthampton, MA, 2013^[12]

External image
"Glory Glory" Photo Gallery (11 photos)

• "Glory, Glory" (study of patriotism in the U.S.): State University of New York at Albany, Fine Arts Center; Camerawork, San Francisco; French Library, Boston; FNAC International tour (Nice, Paris, Lille, and Grenoble, France, Brussels, Belgium); French Institute, New York; Columbia University, New York.
• "The Franco Americans" (photographs and texts): Smith College, Northampton, MA, Boston Public Library, Massachusetts and New Hampshire State-wide Tour, Wistariahurst Museum, Holyoke, MA
• FNAC Galleries national tour, including the World Francophone Summit in Strasbourg, France; Lyon, France - Lyon Affaires Culturelles.
• "Martha" (photographs and text): Northampton Center for the Arts
• "Lionel Delevingne Photographer" (a retrospective): Springfield Technical Community College, Springfield, MA
• "Ein Pariser in Amerika": Institut Francais, Berlin, Germany

• "Lionel Delevingne Photograph Collection, ca.1975-1995". University of Massachusetts.
• One of Delevingne's Clamshell alliance Seabrook occupation photos (published in No Nukes, retrieved July 17, 2014)
• "Chernobyl: Twenty Years Later", motherjones.com, May 8, 2006.

• Photojournalism

• LionelDelevigne.com
• Delevingne and Associates (publishing company)
• To The Village Square - Official Book Website
• To The Village Square - Photo Gallery (requires Flash)