Stephen DiRado: Bell Pond

November 1 - December 4, 2026

At Gallery 300 at the Fort Point Arts Community
300 Summer Street, Boston

Opening reception:
Sunday, November 1, 3 to 5pm

Artist talk & book signing featuring the new monograph, Bell Pond, from TBW Books:
Sunday, November 22, 3pm

Viewing hours:
Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm
Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5pm

Downloadable check list HERE.

Just a year out of Massachusetts College of Art where he earned his BFA, Stephen DiRado took a routine drive towards the downtown area of Worcester, Massachusetts where he had been fervently documenting the people in the public spaces of his hometown. Having grown frustrated with the lack of consistency in his work and in a moment of happenstance, he came across Bell Pond, an inner-city park located in the outskirts of the downtown Worcester area.

Glancing upon the park, DiRado caught a glimpse of its beach and a throng of people relieving themselves from the day’s heat. Inspired, he pulled into the parking lot and got his large format view camera out from his car. Shortly after setting up his camera, a horde of people surrounded him and the interrogation began: Did he work for the newspaper? Was he a cop? Following the barrage of questions, the artist steadfastly stated his desire to create a photo essay of the community, beginning a six-month long project documenting the denizens of this public, yet guarded space.

Through an impartial eye for his subjects, a persistent, almost daily presence, and the regular sharing of prints with the people he photographed, DiRado quickly earned the trust of the park’s visitors. His photographs from Bell Pond capture the essence of individuals, couples, and families. Some posing with their cars or motorcycles, some finding solace in the cool of the pond’s water, and some caught in the embrace of a loved one.

By the end of the summer as the park’s attendance waned, DiRado had exposed more than a thousand sheets of 4x5 film. Over the next many months he edited down the work, and in March of 1984 an exhibition was held in a local gallery, with many of the subjects of his photographs in attendance at the exhibition’s opening reception, some of whom he is still in contact with today.

As the first major body of work by DiRado, Bell Pond would prove to be a blueprint for the subsequent bodies of work made during his acclaimed career. 

“My obsession with thinking and working as a practitioner came to fruition. What I had accomplished was not a formulaic stamped-out essay, but a standard for all the projects that would follow in my career. I was determined to make photographs that were well-versed narratives, and that captured the soul of a collective—people who are drawn to a location that they identify as home. Bell Pond became the micro-environment where I found purpose as an artist. I latched onto a sustainable formula that I’d suspected all along would lead to success: Do the work, learn from failures, never give up.” —Stephen DiRado

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, the Harry Ransom Research Center, Austin, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Currier Museum, Manchester, New Hampshire, the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, among others. His work has also been featured and reviewed nationally in publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Vice Magazine, National Geographic, National Public Radio, and most recently, The New Yorker.