David Carl Turnley

Landesinnung Wien der Berufsfotografie, Leica Gallery Vienna and Festival La Gacilly-Baden Photo present:

David Carl Turnley

Artist Talk at the Leica Gallery Vienna, Seilergasse 14, 1010 Vienna.
Free entry
Registration required by e-mail to: festival@lagacilly-baden.photo

David Carl Turnley is an American photographer and photojournalist. He has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photo Reporting (1990) and twice named Press Photographer of the Year (1988, 1991) for his work.

His twin brother Peter Turnley is also a photographer.

David and Peter Turnley were born on 22 June 1955 in Fort Wayne, the sons of William Loyd Turnley and Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Ann Turnley. David Turnley completed his studies in French literature at the University of Michigan in 1977 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

In 1978, he began his career as a photographer at the Northville Sliger Home Newspapers. From 1980 to 1998, Turnley worked for the Detroit Free Press. From 1985 to 1987, he worked primarily in South Africa, where he documented the late stages of apartheid. He became a close friend of the Mandela family and photographed Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, among other events. He then returned to Paris, where he studied at the Sorbonne until 1997. During this time, he photographed events such as the Second Gulf War, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Eastern European revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

His photograph of a grieving father who lost his son in the Spitak earthquake was named Press Photo of the Year in 1988. His photo of a US soldier in the Second Gulf War crying over his comrade killed by friendly fire also won the award in 1991. Turnley is one of only five photographers to have won the award twice. In 1990, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his photos of the upheavals in Eastern Europe and China.

In 1997, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from The New School. From 1997 to 1998, he studied at Harvard University on a Nieman Fellowship.[4] In 2007, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of St. Francis. As an associate professor, he has been lecturing at his alma mater, the University of Michigan School of Art and Design, since 2012.