‘Photo nomad’ who captured war and Picasso, dies at 102

To photograph the U.S. assault on Okinawa, a World War II battle so fierce it was remembered as a “typhoon of steel,” David Douglas Duncan lay suspended under the wing of a P-38 fighter plane.

Duncan, a combat photographer with the Marines, was sealed inside a cramped, acrylic-tipped tank designed to transport wounded troops. His camera in one hand, he kept a towel in the other to wipe sweat and condensation from the glass, allowing him to capture the precise moment at which Marine bombers dropped napalm on Japanese pillboxes.

The tank was unventilated, and Duncan later said the heat was so great he “lost about 11 pounds in 45 minutes.”

Duncan, who died June 7 at 102, was widely considered one of the finest photojournalists of the 20th century. In Life magazine photo essays, television specials and about two dozen books, he captured the seemingly incongruous subjects of war and art, traveling from the front lines of battle to the treasure troves of the Kremlin in Moscow and the French studio of Pablo Picasso.

A self-described “photo nomad,” Duncan played a key role in shaping public perception of World War II and the subsequent conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. Many of his photos have been exhibited by institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art and Museum of Modern Art, both in New York.

“He’s really one of the giants of the medium,” said Michael Carlebach, a photographer and photojournalism scholar.

His work in Korea—published in Life, featured in his 1951 book “This Is War!” and later adapted for a set of 22-cent postage stamps—was described by the photographer and museum curator Edward Steichen as “the highest tide that combat photography has achieved.”