EUGENE RICHARDS (B. 1944)

'The boys in both of these photographs seem so transcendentally happy. Eugene Richards, a great documentary photographer, began his career doing street work in South Boston in the 1970s. This photograph is both playful and menacing. Richards sees the intersection of the boy’s crossed arms, the arching path and the Wonder Bread ad and manages to suggest the political and social upheaval of the time.
The Krause is an image of delirium. The pleasuring and embracing rush of water cascading over the young boy is visceral. His expression reconfirms this as he dissolves away into perfect happiness, the fullness of life captured in this photograph of total immersion and dreaming.'
Images in the collection often refer to people or events in my life, although the personal connection is never the immediate attraction. I tend to find the link later, after the work has been around for a period of time. The George Krause Fountainhead, Philadelphia reminds me of something personal and of life’s extraordinary richness. You have to own the bad and the good. Photographs behave like entries in the journal of life. – W.M. Hunt