Renowned photographer Fred Lyon passed away last week at 97. COUPAR remembers him for his photographic eye, quick wit, and kind heart. The 4th generation San Franciscan showcased the city during the golden age of photojournalism in silvered shades of black and white. As a design aficionado, he shot its iconic interiors for House & Garden, Vogue, and Architectural Digest. Lyon fell in love with cameras as a teenager graduating from high school at fourteen to apprentice at Gabriel Moulin Studios. Moulin's two sons, who he described as "terrors," ran the commercial photography studio. Perhaps that was the incentive for Lyon to leave after a couple of years and attend the Art Center School in Los Angeles. He studied photography under Ansel Adams, Will Connell, and Edward Kaminski.

After enlisting in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Lyon served as a military photographer stationed in Washington, D. C., and was assigned to photograph numerous White House press events. He shot New York's glamourous fashion world when he returned to civilian life. Relocating to San Francisco in 1946, he captured the activities and dreams of its inhabitants, from high society debutantes to blue-collar workers. Lyon told their stories against the Bay Area's mercurial backdrop of fog. He and his camera wandered the urban landscape, his lens lingering on the city's haunting beauty with its culturally diverse neighborhoods, dynamic downtown, and vibrant art scene. Compared to French street photographer Brassaï, known as "The Eye of Paris," Lyon was "The Eye of San Francisco."

Before passing away, Lyon completed Inventing The California Look Through The Lens Of Fred Lyon: Interiors by Frances Elkins, Michael Taylor, John Dickinson, and Other Design Innovators with text by Philip E. Meza. The book leaves a legacy showing the timeless residences of San Francisco's wealthy elite from the 1940s to the 1980s. Other books that feature his photos are San Francisco Noir, San Francisco Portrait of a City 1940–1960, and Vineyards: Photographs by Fred Lyon. His work has been exhibited in San Francisco at the Museum of Modern Art, the Legion of Honor Museum, the Leica Gallery, and the Art Institute of Chicago and was the subject of a Life Magazine retrospective. Lyon considered his life a fortuitous adventure, and everyone he met along the way will miss him.

Through The Lens: Remembering Photographer Fred Lyon

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