E-Photo
Issue #164  10/24/2009
 
Photographer and Educator Jerry Burchfield Dies From Colon Cancer

Jerry Burchfield, artist/photographer, curator, author and educator who lived in Southern California died from colon cancer on September 11, 2009, Orange, CA. He was 62 years old.

Burchfield was born on July 28, 1947 in Chicago. From 1973 to 1987, Burchfield was the co-owner with Mark Chamberlain of BC Space Gallery, a pioneering alternative gallery space dedicated to showing non-conformist contemporary photography. From 1987 to 2009, he was a professor of photography and photography gallery director at Cypress College, Cypress, CA.

The author of several books and catalogues on photography, Burchfield co-founded the Laguna Wilderness Press. Known as an environmentally conscious artist-activist, Burchfield's work received numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. In April, 2004, Burchfield was the featured artist for Arts OC's 5th Annual Arts Awards.

In 2006, Burchfield received an Art in Public Places Award from the Architecture Foundation of Orange County and the AIA, a Lifetime Achievement Award from Artists for a Better World, and was the Honored Educator at the Western Regional Conference of the Society for Photographic Education. Also, during the summer of 2006, Burchfield, along with his colleagues in The Legacy Project, produced the Great Picture, which resulted in the world's largest functioning pinhole camera obscura and the world's largest photograph.