Better Together

By Suzanne Révy

Each week over the past several decades, documentary photographer Stephen DiRado has welcomed a gathering of artists into his home, establishing a thriving hub of photographers, actors, painters, poets and neighbors. Not surprisingly, he has photographed many of them. Lugging either his large format film camera or a small digital one, he has made pictures wherever he has wandered. At home in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, he made portraits at the Worcester Galleria and Bell Pond in the 80’s, and during summers on Martha’s Vineyard, he photographed friends and acquaintances on Aquinnah beach. In a retrospective exhibition featuring prints, films and projections, DiRado’s singular vision is evident: his images are a gift to his sitters and to the future. “Stephen DiRado, Better Together: Four Decades of Photographs,” is on view at the Fitchburg Art Museum in MA through June 1st, 2025.  

Feature Image: “Monday Night Salon, September 24, 2001” by Stephen DiRado, from the Dinner Series, courtesy of the artist and the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA

Breaking bread with friends and family is a tradition steeped in convivial emotions, and DiRado took many opportunities to photograph his meals with an 8”x10” view camera and black and white film. The entrance to the exhibit welcomes visitors with two large prints from his Dinner Series. In one, “Monday Night Salon, Sept. 24, 2001” DiRado presents a large group bathed in heavenly light with a silhouetted figure in the foreground, recalling variations of the Last Supper and Norman Rockwell’s Freedom From Want (aka “the Thanksgiving painting”). Three groupings create mini melodramas as their faces and hands guide the eye around the composition. Among the crowd, the tilt of DiRado’s head and the softness of his expression are, like the entire image, ethereal yet whimsical. As in Rockwell’s painting, DiRado offers a knowing wink to the history of art as he revels in abundant friendships.

“Stephen, Donna, John and Jim, Worcester, MA February 7th, 2007” by Stephen DiRado, from the Dinner Series, courtesy of the artist and the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA.

“Zack, Chilmark, MA, July 17th, 2004” by Stephen DiRado, from the Dinner Series, courtesy of the artist and the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA.

Other Dinner Series pictures are intimate, as in the gathering with DiRado, his wife, Donna, the late collage artist John O’Reilly and his late partner Jim. Large or small, the details DiRado includes in these spaces, from a small plate anchoring one image, to another where a young boy dangles his stockinged feet in boredom, emphasize the significance of the minutiae in creating a sense of home and family.

“Gene Shaking, February 23, 2008” by Stephen DiRado from the series With Dad, courtesy of the artist and the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA.

The most intimate series is undoubtedly DiRado’s With Dad. Suffering from Alzheimer’s late in life, DiRado lovingly photographed his father’s gradual decline. The pictures are painful and poignant, and they serve to humanize a man whose life’s memories were slipping from him. The ghosting in a long exposure is particularly charged and creates the impression of witnessing the soul beyond the corporeal. 

“Venus, June 15th, 1986” by Stephen DiRado, from the Mall Series, courtesy of the artist and the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA.

“Cheryl, Jamie and Michael, July 3rd, 1983” by Stephen DiRado, from the series Bell Pond, courtesy of the artist and the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA.

Famously affable and approachable, DiRado is expert at photographing strangers, too. His early work in the Mall Series and Bell Pond feature people at leisure whom he encountered at the start of his photographic career. The ethos of the 1980’s pulsates in these pictures featuring big hair, lipstick and the mustaches of two cops. In the almost forty years since they were made, the work functions as a time capsule. Similarly, DiRado’s studies of students in his Classroom Series preserves the trends marking the past fifteen years. By choosing to photograph a class group or two near the end of each semester, DiRado continues to create historic documents that will, in time, highlight not only outward appearances, but the mood of students, pre- and post-pandemic.

“Intro to Photography, Clark University, November 17th, 2010” by Stephen DiRado, from the Classroom Series, courtesy of the artist and the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA.

“Cleveland, Gay Head, MA, August 22nd, 1996” by Stephen DiRado, from the series Beach People, courtesy of the artist and the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA.

“Dick, Aquinnah, MA, July 10th, 2017” by Stephen DiRado, from the series Beach Peopl, courtesy of the artist and the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA.

DiRado’s Beach People made over many years at Aquinnah, the clothing optional area on Martha’s Vineyard, engages with the nude. “Cleveland” recalls Botticelli’s Birth of Venus with foam swirling around her feet and emphasizing the grace of the human form. It is significant to note that DiRado centers ordinary bodies, most often juxtaposed with rocks and eroding cliffs. Through contrasts in texture and tonality, he simultaneously intones the beauty of the human body and the inevitable mutability of aging. And in several close up portraits where you can almost taste the salt of the ocean on translucent skin, such as in “Rebecca,”  viewers will intuit Dirado’s fascination with the glow of dusk under a setting sun; a testament to his profound affection for his sitters. Also on view, a self-directed film called Summer Spent; this experimental documentary reveals his anxieties around art making in the sand, while allowing viewers a glance into his creative process.

“Rebecca, Aquinnah, MA, August 19th, 2012” by Stephen DiRado, from the series Beach People, courtesy of the artist and the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA.

From the series Across the Table by Stephen DiRado at the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)

Another of DiRado’s long-term projects,  Across the Table, is installed as a projection in a three-hour loop of color photographs. A mesmerizing compendium of encounters at dinners, salons or coffees, it is fascinating to see some of the same faces and venues reappear. DiRado has been a mentor, friend and colleague of mine, so it was a treat to see myself in a few of these pictures. At the opening reception, viewers were drawn to this gallery to sit comfortably in anticipation of seeing those shared moments they had with the artist.  Across the Table is a remarkable autobiography, and as a whole, DiRado’s Four Decades of Photographs is an ardent and convincing illustration that life is indeed Better Together. 

Projected loop from the series Across the Table by Stephen DiRado on view at the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)

The exhibition is rounded out with pictures from his dynamic JUMP series, portraits of the American folk artist Jacob Knight, several examples of star gazing, Soren Sorenson’s documentary on the making of With Dad and a graphic timeline of the past forty years in an interactive process gallery.

Be sure to go downstairs to see Tara Sellios: Ask Now the Beasts, and keep an eye out for our forthcoming review!

For more information: https://fitchburgartmuseum.org/stephen-dirado-better-together/

“Jump, Edgartown, MA, August 7th, 2006” by Stephen DiRado, from the series  JUMP, courtesy of the artist and the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA.