Fred Lyon (September 27, 1924 – August 22, 2022) was an American photographer. He was known for shots of foggy

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, and photos of San Francisco life from the 1940s to the 1960s. Lyon worked in different roles within photography, including as a military photographer, a photojournalist, a fashion photographer, landscape photographer, and as a street photographer. His nocturnal San Francisco photography was often compared with Hungarian–French photographer

Brassaï Brassaï (; pseudonym of Gyula Halász, ; 9 September 1899 – 8 July 1984) was a Hungarian–French photographer, sculptor, medalist, writer, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerou ...

Early life and education

Fred Lyon was born on September 27, 1924, at St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco, California. His father had farming interests and a 18,000-acre ranch in the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; Spanish language in California, Spanish: ''Valle de San Joaquín'') is the southern half of California's Central Valley (California), Central Valley. Famed as a major breadbasket, the San Joaquin Valley is an importa ...

. He was raised in San Carlos and Burlingame. He got his first camera at age 12. As a teenager he started practicing photography, and at age 15 he got his first job as a photographer's assistant at the Moulin Studios. After high school at age 17, he enrolled at Art Center School in Los Angeles (now

ArtCenter College of Design The ArtCenter College of Design is a private art college in Pasadena, California. It was incorporated in 1930 as a degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both the visual arts and design. ...

). One summer Lyon studied under

Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his Monochrome photography, black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association ...

, who taught at ArtCenter.

Career

After the

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reci ...

attack, around 1943, Lyon dropped out of college and enrolled in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

with the intention of becoming a pilot, but instead he worked as a military photographer. In his role as military photographer, Lyon photographed the

Roosevelt family The Roosevelt family is an American political family from New York whose members have included two United States presidents, a First Lady, and various merchants, bankers, politicians, inventors, clergymen, artists, and socialites. The progeny ...

portrait, and was witness to

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...

’s first day as president. After the war he lived in New York City, working as a fashion photographer. In either 1947 or 1948, he had his first photo magazine assignment for

Homes and Gardens ''Homes & Gardens'' is a British monthly interior design and garden design magazine published by Future plc. The magazine is based in London and began circulation in 1919. It was the UK’s first home interest magazine. The magazine is marketed ...

. He briefly worked for fashion houses in New York City, as well as worked as a freelance photographer for

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** '' Vogue Adria'', a fashion magazine for former Yugoslav countries ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ' ...

, Glamour, and

Life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

magazines. His first wife was model Anne (née Murray), who posed in many of his early images. The couple eventually moved to San Francisco. In 1949, he had a solo exhibition titled, ''Photographs by Fred G. Lyon, Jr.'' at the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

. In the 1950s, Lyon socialized with

Richard Diebenkorn Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he began ...

and other painters within the

Bay Area Figurative Movement The Bay Area Figurative Movement (also known as the Bay Area Figurative School, Bay Area Figurative Art, Bay Area Figuration, and similar variations) was a mid-20th-century art movement made up of a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area wh ...

. He would take photographs of San Francisco landmarks including the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, hotels in Nob Hill and cityscapes, which were often highlighting the fog. Lyon had a love of both old San Francisco, as well as the newer version of the city. Lyon also had a special interest in photographing vineyards and wineries in nearby Napa and Sonoma. In 2013, the film documentary ''Fred Lyon: Living Through the Lens'' was made by filmmaker Michael House. His last photo was taken when he was in his 90s in 2017 of the 500 Club bar sign in the

Mission District The Mission District ( Spanish: ''Distrito de la Misión''), commonly known as the Mission ( Spanish: ''La Misión''), is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name ...

Personal life and death

Lyon's first wife Anne (née Murray), a fashion model, died in 1989. They had two sons, Michael and Gordon. In the 1970s Lyon lived in

Sausalito Sausalito (Spanish for "small willow grove") is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located southeast of Marin City, south-southeast of San Rafael, and about north of San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge. Sausalito's p ...

, California. In 2003, Lyon married interior designer Penelope Whelan Rozis. For many years he lived in the Cow Hollow neighborhood of San Francisco. Lyon died on August 22, 2022, in his home in San Francisco, he had

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma, is a malignant tumor that begins in the lung. Lung cancer is caused by genetic damage to the DNA of cells in the airways, often caused by cigarette smoking or inhaling damaging chemicals. Damaged ...

. SFGate remembered him as someone with "one of the longest, most prolific careers of any 20th century photographer."

Publications

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References

External links