Saturday, March 6, 1999, is the grand opening of David Douglas Duncan's first retrospective exhibit in the United States, co-sponsored by the LBJ Library and Museum and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at UT Austin (Please see photos, Pages 6-7). David Douglas Duncan: One Life, A Photographic Odyssey, looks back at Duncan's career as a photojournalist.

From his beginnings in 1934, capturing a fleeing John Dillinger to working during the height of LIFE magazine in the 1940s and 1950s, Duncan has captured some of the most memorable images of the 20th century. His work has been published in National Geographic. In the Middle East, he photographed the birth of the Israeli State, and he was the first westerner to photograph the treasures of Russia's Kremlin. Through his work he became friends with some of the most powerful and fascinating people in the world, including Pablo Picasso, one of this century's greatest artists.

Duncan is perhaps most well-known for his work as a combat photographer. He first photographed war as a soldier himself. He was a lieutenant in the Marine Corps, capturing the faces of the soldiers in the South Pacific and Bougainville and the Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri. He joined the Marines again as a civilian in Korea and Vietnam, producing some of the most vivid pictures of war ever taken. In Korea, he captured battlefield photos on the Pusan Perimeter, Inchon and the Changjin Reservoir. Duncan wanted to show what war did to a man, and he did with images that stunned his editors and peers with their artistry, power and quality.

After seeing Duncan's work in the Vietnam War a publisher said, "I don't know anybody who reflects war on a human level as well as he does. You get the feeling that he's inside the war." Duncan did get inside the war with intimate portraits of Marines at Con Thien and the siege at Khe Sanh. The exhibit features Duncan's recordings of the war combined with his images to give a sense of the experience of war.

David Douglas Duncan: One Life, A Photographic Odyssey will be on display March 6 through Jan. 2, 2000.