Family Album, Dorchester, Massachusetts

Maker Richards, Eugene American, b. 1944 Boston, MA

Date1976

MediumGelatin silver print

Dimensionsimage: 11 7/8 in x 17 1/2 in

Credit LineMuseum purchase

Object number1987:96

About the ArtistIn the tradition of concerned documentary photography, Eugene Richards strives to broadcast the plight of individuals. Like his colleague Susan Meiselas, Richards might be thought of as a soldier with a camera, coming face-to-face with the difficult and the deadly: poverty in Arkansas, racial violence, political refugees, the drug culture of North Philadelphia, the criminally insane, the experiences of cancer patients. Family Album, Dorchester, Massachusetts reflects Richards’s personal and political involvement in Dorchester, the deteriorating working-class neighborhood outside of Boston where he grew up. The squirming boy in the background and anonymously held family album in the foreground represent the levels and reach of a family–past and present, permanent and evolving.

A member of Magnum Photos, Eugene Richards is known for his socially aware documentary photographs. A former VISTA volunteer and civil rights activist in the 1960s, Richards earned a BA in English from Northeastern University and did graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the direction of Minor White. His highly personal images have been frequently exhibited and published. Born in 1944 in Boston, Richards lives in New York.