Photography's most
single-minded social documentarist, Eugene Richards, aims for
immediate, intimate, unflinching access to victimized individuals.
Richards is best known
for his books – he has authored thirteen – and photo
essays on such diverse topics as breast cancer, drug addiction,
poverty, emergency medicine, pediatric HIV and AIDS, the meat
packing industry, the plight of the world's mentally disabled,
and aging and death in America. Among numerous honors,
he has won the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award, a Guggenheim
Fellowship, three National Endowment for the Arts grants, the
Leica Medal of Excellence, the Olivier Rebbot Award twice, and
the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Journalism Award
for coverage of the disadvantaged.
In the New York Times Magazine, Richard
Woodward wrote about Richards' unique relationship with his
subjects: "The obvious trust that [his] subjects place
in him explains in part his ability to view their lives from
the inside–from their beds and bathrooms, as though he
were a guest at the kitchen table or a member of the family."
"There
are 91 boxes of photographs up there on the floor
to ceiling shelves:
photographs that have me wanting to return places;
photographs that might make
some people uncomfortable. " —Eugene Richards
