Jim Goldberg
Success for John is very important
1980-1983
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Jim Goldberg
Success for John is very important
1980-1983
Physical Qualities
Gelatin silver print, Sheet: 355 x 278 mm. (14 x 10 15/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of George H. Dalsheimer, Baltimore
Object Number
1998.202
Using his camera as a tool for social activism, Jim Goldberg has dedicated his career to documenting marginalized populations, including homeless teenagers, the elderly, and refugees. His inclusion of his subjects’ handwritten comments brought a novel element to the tradition of documentary photography. From 1977 to 1984, Goldberg photographed people from two groups in San Francisco: residents of a transient hotel and an art school’s trustees (and their family members). While the dramatic contrast in their environments illustrates the vast difference in the two groups’ financial means, the subjects’ expressions and highly personal confessions suggest a mutual feeling of loneliness. Goldberg’s 1975 book Rich and Poor compiled the resulting pictures. In the afterword to his book, Goldberg described himself as a “translator” and wrote of his hope that by sharing stories such as these, society could break down the myths that divide it.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by gift, 1998; George H. Dalsheimer, Baltimore
Seeing Now: Photography Since 1960
Imagining Home
Rich and Poor: Photographs by Jim Goldberg, New York: Random House, 1985, ill. section 2, 73rd unnumbered page
Inscribed: lower left verso in graphite: "105"; lower right verso in graphite: "Jim Goldberg 1981/84"; upper right verso in graphite: "JG.035.2"
