On a very hot day in Dumbo, New York City, Eugene Richards walked past a grandmother and some children on his way to the subway. While the grandmother sat in a wading pool, a little girl was playing, throwing buckets of water in the air. This image was featured in Richards' book American We, published by Aperture in 1994. The book explored the many faces of America - from the tender, to the funny, the disturbing to the sublime. Americans We was the recipient of the International Center of Photography's Infinity Award for Best Photographic Book in 1995.
Eugene Richards was born in 1944 in Dorchester, Massachusetts. In 1968, he joined VISTA, (Volunteers in Service to America), a government programme established as an arm of the so called 'War on Poverty'. Following a year and a half in eastern Arkansas, Richards helped found a social service organisation and a community newspaper, Many Voices, which reported on black political action as well as the Ku Klux Klan. After being invited to join Magnum Photos in 1978, he worked increasingly as a freelance magazine photographer, undertaking assignments on such diverse topics as the American family, drug addiction, emergency medicine, paediatric AIDS, aging and death in America.
