Biography
"You catch the action when it is something horrendous or something quite mundane. But whatever it is, it's there for the historian to access information from."
"I've had an extraordinary life of being in places that nobody could imagine."- Diana Walker
As the Time magazine White House photographer for twenty years, Diana Walker captured virtually every move of Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton. After starting out shooting amateur black-and-white photographs of the 1963 civil rights march at the Lincoln Memorial and President John F. Kennedy's funeral, Walker had obtained White House and Congress credentials by 1975 through freelancing for Washington Monthly. In 1979, she became a contract photographer for Time, covering First Lady Rosalyn Carter's travels and Walter Mondale's presidential campaign.
Walker has been recognized by the World Press, the White House News Photographers Association and the National Press Photographers Association. Her longevity as a White House photographer earned her exclusives—like being the only photographer in the room when Nancy Reagan entertained Raisa Gorbachev for the first time. She also was the first photojournalist allowed to spend an entire day inside the White House with President George H. W. Bush—resulting in the 1989 Time photo essay, "A Day in the Life of George Bush." Walker has also had her photographs published in Paris Match, Vanity Fair, People, Life and New York magazines.
For access to additional photographs by Diana Walker, as well as to purchase prints of her work, contact Alison Beck at the Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.
