Eugene Richards
Eugene Richards is a photographer, writer and filmmaker who has authored numerous books. His first publication, Few Comforts or Surprises (1973), which speaks of the lives of sharecroppers in the Arkansas Delta, was followed by Dorchester Days (1978), a portrait of the inner-city neighborhood where he was born. Subsequent books include Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue (1994), a study of the impact of hardcore drugs on inner city communities; and War Is Personal (2010), a documentation of the consequences of the Iraq war. Recent books include The Day I Was Born (2020), which focuses on life and protest in the racially divided Delta of Arkansas, and In This Brief Life (2023), a look back at 50 years of photographic work. Among numerous honors, Richards has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award, the Kraszna-Krausz Book Award for Photographic Innovation, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for coverage of the disadvantaged.