Bill Burke

September – November, 2011

The Paul Paletti Gallery is pleased to announce our exhibition of Boston based photographer, Bill Burke. This will also be the Gallery’s featured exhibit for this year’s city-wide Photo Biennial in October.

Burke’s documentary photographs are a haunting and poignant record of his travels and experiences in Southeast Asia and the U.S. The images are often interwoven with his written descriptions of the people and places, lending additional personal and historic elements. His subjects are compelling and exotic in their everyday lives.

Bill Burk was born in Milford, Connecticut in 1943. He received a B.A. in Art History from Middlebury College and a B.F.A. and M.F.A. in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design. He has received grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, as well as two artist’s fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Burke has published a number of books including, They Shall Cast out the Demons, 1983; I Want to Take Picture, 1987; Mine Fields, 1995; and most recently Autrefois Maison Privee, 2004.

Burke has been the subject of more than 60 exhibitions, including over 20 solo exhibitions, at venues. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco MoMA; Metropolitan Museum of Art; International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House; J. Paul Getty Museum; and the Smithsonian Institutions of American Art. Currently, Burke teaches photography at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

During the Photo Biennial the Frazier History Museum will also highlight Burke’s documentary work in the group exhibition, Rough Road. The Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project 1975 – 1977.