Eugene Richards (1)

Born in 1944 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Eugene Richards studied photography with Minor White after completing a degree in English and Journalism. Following a five-year stint as a social worker and reporter in eastern Arkansas, he published his first book, Few Comforts or Surprises: The Arkansas toon meer Delta, in 1973. Since then he has worked as a freelance editorial photographer for such publications as Life and The New York Times Magazine. In 1981, he became a full member of the photographers' cooperative Magnum. Richards's subsequent books include Dorchester Days (1978, republished by Phaidon in 2000), a portrait of the Boston neighborhood where he was born; Exploding Into Life (1986), which chronicles his first wife Dorothea Lynch's struggle with breast cancer; Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue (1994, Kraszna-Krausz Book Award for Photography), a study of the impact of hardcore drugs on American cities; Americans We (1994, International Center of Photography Infinity Award for Publication); and, most recently, Stepping Through the Ashes (2002), an elegy to those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. Among numerous honors, Richards has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for Lifetime Achievement toon minder