Dick Blau (b. 1943 in New York City) is a self-taught photographer, and filmmaker.
His work focuses on experimental narrative, ethnography, and psychological
portraiture, especially related to his own family. He holds a BA in English from
Harvard and a PhD in American Studies from Yale. He started his career at the State
University of New York at Buffalo, where he met frequent collaborators Charles and
Angeliki Keil. He came to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) in 1975 and
co-founded the Film Department in 1979, which he chaired until 1999. He is currently
Professor Emeritus of Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres at UWM.
He started photography work around polka music and culture in the 1970's, in Buffalo,
which then continued in Milwaukee and Chicago. This work became an important part of
the book Polka Happiness,
published in 1992 with Charles and Angeliki Keil. In 1993, he travelled to Greece to
take photographs of musicians in a Romani community, which became a major part of
another collaboration with the Keils, the book Bright Balkan Morning, published in 2002. Other
photography projects include Living with His
Camera and Scenes from
a Wisconsin Summer, both of which focus on family
dynamics. Important film works include Up the
Block One Sunday, an experimental documentary of
Bethelehem Temple Church in Milwaukee, and Jidyll, an experimental narrative related to Judaism in
collaboration with Yehuda Yannay.
