Joseph Dankowski was an American fine art photographer

Fine art photography

Fine art photography refers to photographs that are created in accordance with the creative vision of the photographer as artist. Fine art photography stands in contrast to photojournalism, which provides a visual account for news events, and commercial photography, the primary focus of which is to...

, best known for his 50 print portfolio of "Manholes and Gutters" (1969–71).

A resident of Shirley, Maine

Shirley, Maine

Shirley is a town in Piscataquis County, Maine, United States. The town was named after Shirley, Massachusetts. The population was 183 at the 2000 census...

, he was born in Camden, New Jersey

Camden, New Jersey

The city of Camden is the county seat of Camden County, New Jersey. It is located across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 77,344...

 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

Eugène Atget was a French photographer noted for his photographs documenting the architecture and street scenes of Paris....

, Harry Callahan

Harry Callahan

Harry Morey Callahan was an influential twentieth century American photographer. Born in Detroit, Michigan, he began teaching himself photography in 1938. He formed a friendship with Todd Webb who was also destined to become a photographer. A talk given by Ansel Adams in 1941 inspired him to take...

  and Robert Frank

Robert Frank

Robert Frank , born in Zürich, Switzerland, is an important figure in American photography and film. His most notable work, the 1958 photobook titled The Americans, was influential, and earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and skeptical outsider's view of American...

. In 1972 he received one of the first National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

grants to a photographer and master printer.

Dankowski moved to Shirley, Maine in 1974, where he continued to photograph. His work in Maine focused on the portfolio “Fall in Black and White” and a sequence of Ice and River photographs.

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.