From 1977 to 1985, Jim Goldberg photographed the wealthy and destitute of San Francisco, creating a visual document that has since become a landmark work. Through the combination of text and photographs, Rich and Poor’s mass appeal was instantly recognizable.
The photos and subsequent title leave little room for ambiguity. The wealthy and comfortable are juxtaposed with those who are struggling to see a bright future. All the pictures were taken in the same West Coast city but the difference in circumstances makes them seem worlds apart.
Goldberg’s series passes the microphone to the subjects. They are invited to reflect on their portraits and the lives that they depict. Their accounts range from devastating edicts of hopelessness to affirmations of self-satisfaction.

In 1984 the series was exhibited alongside Robert Adams and Joel Sternfeld in the “Three Americans” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, and was published the following year by Random House.

Out of print since 1985, Jim Goldberg’s Rich and Poor has been completely re-designed and expanded by the artist for Steidl. Rich and Poor builds upon the classic combination of photographs and handwriting and adds a surplus of vintage material and contemporary photographs that have never been published or exhibited. The photographs in Rich and Poor constitute a shocking and gripping portrait of America during the 70’s and 80’s that remains just as relevant today.

“I have spent time reflecting on my boyhood in New Haven, and why I felt compelled to make Rich and Poor in the first place. I have a more nuanced view now about what photographs can and cannot do to address economic disparities, but I remain fascinated by my original impulse to undertake the project, and by the assumptions of American exceptionalizm, picked up as a boy in New England, which suffuse the work.
We were taught back then that we were on a special path, and I think my outrage about the desperation of the poor – and the dissatisfaction of the rich – stemmed in part from my belief that they represented a derogation from that path, a veering off course that had to be rooted out and documented. And I believed, I really believed, that once people saw what was happening, then we, as a society, would fix it.
I’m less naive now, or at least I hope I am. I’m confronted daily by the fact that conditions for the ‘Rich’ and the ‘Poor’ haven’t changed much since the book was first published. But I can’t let go of the desire, the impulse, to want to believe in a society where things really will get better. And, if nothing else, I hold out the hope that my photographs and all the people I met can at least still speak for themselves.”
- Jim Goldberg