Joseph Dankowski (September 2, 1932 – November 5, 2010) was an American fine art photographer, best known for his 50 print portfolio "Manholes and Gutters" (1969–71). A resident of

Shirley, Maine Shirley is a town in Piscataquis County, Maine, United States. The town was named after Shirley, Massachusetts. The population was 251 at the 2020 census. It was the birthplace of humorist Bill Nye. Geography According to the United States Cen ...

, he was born in

Camden, New Jersey Camden is a city in and the county seat of Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Camden is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan area and is located directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the 2020 ...

on September 2, 1932. He began his artistic career as a painter and sculptor. After moving to New York City in 1958, he took up photography, working mostly in black and white reportage style, influenced by

Eugène Atget Eugène Atget (; 12 February 1857 – 4 August 1927) was a French ''flâneur'' and a pioneer of documentary photography, noted for his determination to document all of the architecture and street scenes of Paris before their disappearance to mod ...

, Harry Callahan,

Robert Frank Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss photographer and documentary filmmaker, who became an American binational. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled ''The Americans'', earned Frank comparisons to a modern-da ...

and Bruce Davidson. In 1972 he received one of the first

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

grants to a photographer and master printer. Dankowski moved to Shirley, Maine in 1974, where he continued to photograph in both black and white and color. His work in Maine focused on the portfolio “Fall in Black and White”, a sequence of ''Ice on the River'' photographs, portraits and photographs of the natural world. Dankowki's "Manholes and Gutters" are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., The Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine, The Joy of Giving Something Collection and private collections.

References

1932 births 2010 deaths American photographers People from Camden, New Jersey Artists from Maine Fine art photographers {{US-photographer-stub