The personal story behind the making and the legacy of Goldberg's seminal work about marginalized youth, which occupies the liminal space between documentary and narrative fiction
Jim Goldberg
"I have the great privilege of being both witness and storyteller. Intimacy, trust and intuition guide my work."
- Jim Goldberg
Born in Connecticut in 1953, Jim Goldberg’s innovative and multidisciplinary approach to documentary makes him a landmark photographer and social practitioner of our times. His work often examines the lives of neglected, ignored, or otherwise outside-the-mainstream populations. Through long-term, in-depth collaborations, his work investigates the nature of universal myths about class, power, and happiness.
Goldberg has been working with experimental storytelling for over 40 years, and his major projects and books include Rich and Poor (1977–85), Raised by Wolves (1985–95), Nursing Home (1986), Coming and Going (1996–present), Open See (2003–9), The Last Son (2016), Ruby Every Fall (2016), Candy (2013–17), Darrell & Patricia (2018), Gene (2018), Fingerprint (2021), Another Life (2022), and Coming and Going (2023).
Goldberg’s work is in numerous private and public collections, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship (1985), the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award (2007) and the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (2011). Goldberg has been a member of Magnum Photos since 2006 and is Professor Emeritus at the California College of the Arts.
