William M. Burke is an American photographer and educator known for his 20 years of documentary photography in Vietnam and neighboring countries, detailing the effects of war. Bill Burke was born in 1943 in Derby, Connecticut. In 1966, he received a B.A. degree in Art History from Middlebury College. He continued studies at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and received a B.F.A degree in 1968 and a MFA degree in 1970, while studying with photographer
Harry Callahan.
In 1971, he started teaching at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In 1978, he became a
Guggenheim fellow in photography. His work is included in many public collections including the
Smithsonian American Art Museum,
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Princeton University Art Museum,
Museum of Modern Art,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among others.
Source: Wikipedia
Since 1971 he has taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. While he has contributed to the Christian Science Monitor and published his work in Fortune and Esquire, Burke prefers to present personal travelogue images in series in books and exhibitions. His monographs include
They Shall Cast Out Demons (1983),
Bill Burke Portraits (1987),
I Want to Take Picture (1987), and
Mine Fields (1994). He has exhibited alone and in groups at ICP and elsewhere.
Bill Burke, who failed his draft physical, was spared the experience of many of his contemporaries who fought in the Vietnam War. Since the 1970s he has photographed his travels through Asia not to document military atrocities, but to record his personal reactions. His work reflects a fascination with historical events and sites, yet his interest is broader than the topical documentation of photojournalism. The independent spirit of works such as
Robert Frank's
The Americans (1959) informs Burke's approach to his subjects: he recognizes his outsider status, and the black-and-white photographs of his many trips to Cambodia are as much about the personal impact and experience of being a witness as they are about the cultures he visits. This visitor status is important: Burke makes no pretense trying to develop a photo essay with political overtones, in the tradition of American documentary photography of the 1930s.
Source: International Center of Photography
