Exhibition · Abakus Projects · Other
STEPHEN DIRADO (American, b. 1957) Stephen DiRado is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, and educator born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1957. Influenced by his father, a graphic artist by trade, DiRado pursued the arts, teaching himself photography and beginning a journalism career at age sixteen. In 1981 he earned a B.F.A. from Massachusetts College of Art, and in 1982 joined the faculty at Clark University where he currently serves as professor in the Visual and Performing Arts Department. A master technician of the large-format view camera, DiRado has spent his career documenting the people in his community, capturing both the intimacy of individuals and the dynamics within group interactions. He has recorded the people of numerous locales, notably Bell Pond and The Worcester Galleria in Worcester, Massachusetts, as well as a decades-long project documenting the beaches and people of Martha’s Vineyard, capturing intimate, soulful moments of island life. DiRado has also followed and recorded the lives of his friends and fellow artists, including John O’Reilly and Jim Tellin, and Jacob Knight. Beginning in the late 1980s, DiRado documented his father's struggle with Alzheimer's, resulting in the poignant project, With Dad. An eponymous film directed by Soren Sorensen was released in 2021, garnering seven national awards including Best Documentary Short at the New York City Independent Film Festival and the Massachusetts Film Festival, and the Golden Remi Award for Documentary Short Subject in the Houston international Film Festival. With Dad aired on Public Broadcasting Stations in the fall of 2021, including WGBH Boston. Stephen DiRado has received numerous grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, The National Endowment for the Arts, and is a 2012 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. His photographs are held in numerous collections including the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, New York,…