The Blue Room
by Eugene Richards
List Price:
Our Price: $59.53
You Save: $40.47 (40%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $50.07 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Eugene RichardsEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-12-03
ISBN: 0714848328
Number of pages: 168
Publisher: Phaidon Press Inc.
Book Reviews of The Blue Room
Book Review: The Fragility of Human Life
Summary: 5 Stars
For those who have followed the socially committed life and work of Eugene Richards, THE BLUE ROOM will serve as an infusion of joy. Long respected for his documentation of the 'atrocities of living' such as aging, poverty, drug addiction, death, cancer and mental illness, in this elegantly beautiful volume Richards offers some of the most achingly tender views of relics of human detritus.
Focusing on the Midwestern states of Kansas, North and South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Arkansas and into the regions of New Mexico, Richards pauses at deserted homes and areas where life has stopped - areas where drought, the Great Depression, quashed dreams, and other misfortunes have left grave stones of sad history. Each color photograph is respectfully given a full page bleed, resting opposite and empty white facing page, a design technique very much in keeping with the vision of Eugene Richards in asking the reader/viewer to pause and pay respects and remember before passing on to the next little masterpiece.
This is a monograph of superb photographs by an artist who has made his life's mission one of asking for attention to the fault lines in our country. It is exquisitely beautiful art, but it is also powerful social commentary. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, March 09
Summary of The Blue Room
Eugene Richards was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, a neighborhood of Boston. After graduating from Northeastern University with a degree in English and journalism, he studied photography with Minor White at MIT. In 1968 he became a health care advocate in eastern Arkansas. Two years later, he helped found a social service organization and a community newspaper, Many Voices, that reported on black political action and the Ku Klux Klan. After publication of his first two books, Few Comforts or Surprises: The Arkansas Delta (1973) and Dorchester Days (self-published in 1978), Richards was invited to become a nominee at Magnum. He was a member until he departed in 1995, returned to the cooperative in 2002, and departed for a second time in 2005.Richards has been the recipient of numerous awards over the course of his career, including the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, three National Endowment for the Arts grants, the Leica Medal of Excellence, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, the Olivier Rebbot Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for coverage of the disadvantaged. His photographs are collected and exhibited widely, and a major touring retrospective of his work premiered at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographies in Arles, France in 1997. His photo essays have appeared in countless publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, TIME, Newsweek, The New Yorker, Fortune, and Life. In addition to his prolific photography, Richards has also written, photographed, directed, and produced four short films as well as an hour-long documentary. His documentary, entitled Now, then, forever, is a cinema verite treatment of life inside a Nebraska nursing home that had its world premiere at the 2003 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Other films included Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue, a powerful portrait of a crack-infested neighborhood in Philadelphia, and But, the day came chronicles the passage of a 92-year-old farm into a nursing home. The latter received the Jury Award for Best Short Film at the 2000 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.
Despite his success in other fields, Richards remains best known for his books and photo essays on cancer, drug addiction, poverty, emergency medicine, the mentally disabled, aging, and death in America. His intense vision and unswerving commitment have led him to become what many believe is America's greatest living social documentary photographer. This new body of work, entitled The Blue Room, is one of Richards' most personal works to date. It his is first-ever color project, and it brings together the overarching themes of all his work ''the transient nature of things'' in a beautiful and moving series of pictures of the landscape and abandoned houses of the American West, covering the states of Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Arkansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, and the Dakotas. This is the area where settlers came around the turn of the twentieth century, pursuing the promise of homesteads where they could build successful communities. However, in the wake of the Great Depression and the dust storms of the 1930s, the farms in this isolated, semi-arid region faltered and failed, leaving the land littered with forgotten homes.
Richards' photographs are a statement on the vulnerability of man in the face of the shifting economic opportunities and the climate; a commentary on the inevability of change. In these contemplative pictures we are inspired to imagine the lives of the homes' former occupants. Richards enigmatic pictures make The Blue Room a thought-provoking meditation on memory; a quiet yet incredibly powerful body of work.
Artists, A-Z Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Artists, A-Z Books
Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintingsby Gary Schwartz
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1991-11-05; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $48.50
Life with Lowryby Tilly Marshall
Hutchinson; Published: 1981-02-16; Hardcover; Book
Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Lifeby Richard Meryman
Harper; Published: 1996-10-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.99
Price in other shops:
Georg Baselitz: Paintings 1964-67 [exhibition: May 1-31, 1985]by Georg Baselitz
Anthony d'Offay Gallery; Paperback; Book
Florence and Its Beauty: A Practical Guidebook to the Town and Its Monuments with 350 Illustrations and a Plan of the Principal Places of Interestby Sandra Orienti
G. Ramella - Florence, Italy; Published: 1956; Unknown Binding; Book
Lord of the Rings Sketchbookby Alan Lee
Harpercollins Pb; Published: 2008-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Picassoby Patrick O'Brian
Harvill; Published: 1994; Paperback; Book
The Art of Adventureby Galen Rowell
Collins Pub San Francisco; Published: 1989-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $16.92
Price in other shops:
Calder JewelryOther Distribution; Published: 2007-12-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $360.00
POPism: The Warhol Sixtiesby Andy Warhol, Pat Hackett
Mariner Books; Published: 2006-09-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.58
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photographyby Errol Morris
Penguin Press HC, The; Published: 2011-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $22.85
Price in other shops:
Magnum Contact SheetsThames & Hudson; Published: 2011-11-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $89.49
Price in other shops:
Vivian Maier: Street Photographerby Vivian Maier
powerHouse Books; Published: 2011-11-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $68.88
Publish Your Photography Bookby Darius D. Himes, Mary Virginia Swanson
Princeton Architectural Press; Published: 2011-03-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.04
Price in other shops:
A Procession of Them (William and Bettye Nowlin Series in Art, History, and Culture)University of Texas Press; Published: 2008-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $32.58
Price in other shops:
From Here to There: Alec Soth's Americaby Geoff Dyer, Siri Engberg
Walker Art Center; Published: 2010-11-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $37.80
Price in other shops:
Koudelka: Gypsiesby Will Guy
Aperture; Published: 2011-09-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $53.55
Price in other shops:
War Is PersonalMany Voices Press, Brooklyn, New York; Published: 2010-09-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $29.98
Price in other shops:
Dorchester Daysby Eugene Richards
Phaidon Press; Published: 2000-10-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $26.33
Price in other shops:
The Fat Babyby Eugene Richards
Phaidon Press; Published: 2004-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $54.00
Price in other shops: