Eugene Richards in the Archive

Eugene Richards, Broken Windshield on Dorchester Street, Dorchester, MA, 1977 (921.2000)

Eugene Richards, ICP, October 27, 1982.

Eugene Richards, Puerto Rican Bride, Dorchester, MA, 1976 (3412.1992)

Eugene Richards, ICP, October 27, 1982.

Eugene Richards, U.S. adviser at naval base, La Unión, El Salvador, 1983 (427.2005)

Eugene Richards, “The pile” at Ground Zero, New York City, 2001 (2011.20.1)

Eugene Richards, Onlookers on Broadway, New York, NY, 2001 (2011.20.4)

Eugene Richards, Firefighter in the rubble of Ground Zero, New York, NY, (2011.20.2)

There are 25 photographs (all are gelatin silver prints) made by Eugene Richards in the archive. The oldest is from 1976 and the most recent was made in 2001. Four photos were made in the 1970s. Seventeen were made in the 1980s. Four were made in 2001. The smallest image is 8 by 12 inches (on 11 by 14 inch paper); the largest image is 15.25 by 23 inches (on 20 by 24 inch paper). Two photos were made in El Salvador. Four photos were made in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Four were made in New York City. Fifteen were made in Denver, Colorado.

Dorchester Days is a self-published book, with photos made in Richards’ hometown of Dorchester, Massachusetts. “The thing about an urban neighborhood that’s so special and so distressing I think at times is the idea that on one corner there’s wonderful things going on and on the other corner there’s troublesome things. I took this for theme of the book because it’s sort of the theme of urban life.” -Eugene Richards, from ICP lecture, October 27, 1982.

For the story The Knife and Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency Room Eugene Richards won the W. Eugene Smith Grant in 1981. The prize was granted “to complete a photographic study of a hospital emergency ward, where the most sophisticated medical techniques confront, with compassion, the most violent aspects of society.”
Stepping Through the Ashes, with text by Janine Altongy, “is a remembrance, a reflection of the events of 9/11 and an elegy to those whose lives were lost.”

The exhibition Eugene Richards: The Run-On of Time opens on Thursday at the ICP Museum. It’s open from September 27, 2018 through January 6, 2019. The photographer shares some of the stories behind the photographs: Eugene Richards: The Run-On of Time Audio Tour.