Cure All, 1987
Ektacolor Photograph, 13 1/2" x 9 1/4"
Marx/Engels, 1984
EK78 type C Print, 18" x 18"
MANUAL is the pseudonym for husband-and-wife photographers Edward Hill and Suzanne Bloom. The name MANUAL, as explained by the artists, is derived from “art as (manual) labor, and art as instructional medium (a manual providing insight and information).” Edward Hill was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1935. He received a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, in 1957 and an M.F.A. from Yale University, Connecticut, in 1960. Suzanne Bloom was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1943. She earned her B.F.A. from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, in 1965 and her M.F.A. from Yale University in 1968. MANUAL’s work has been widely exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States. Both Hill and Bloom had been awarded individual fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a joint award from the NEA/Rockefeller Interdisciplinary Fellowship. The two have worked together since the mid-1970s, creating manipulated photographs and videos. In the 1980s they produced a series of photographs that explored pop-culture icons.
*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.