Dolan Photograph Donated to Berkshire Museum
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — The subjects in John Dolan's photos stare straight into the camera, most with the region's hills and dales, paths and fields, serving as spacious backdrops.The award-winning Chatham, N.Y., photographer spent a year recording the everyday lives of the people and places of the Berkshires and neighboring counties in New York and Connecticut at the behest of Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation.
Now one of them, "Fanning the Fire," taken in Alford, has found a permanent home at Berkshire Museum, courtesy of the foundation.
To mark its 20th anniversary last year, the foundation commissioned Dolan to document the people, places and things of interest in the greater Berkshire Taconic region. He was selected to document the region's beauty and local character because of his ability to capture the vital spirit of the people and places he photographs.
Dolan has said his intended goal was to record life as it actually was in the year 2007.
"To accomplish this, I was forced to consider our collective expectation of what images of the bucolic New England rural life look like," he said. "These photographs show what happened when I stopped and looked at what was right before my eyes."
Selections of his work were featured last fall at the museum.
"We are pleased to engage in the birthday tradition of giving," said Jennifer Dowley, president of Berkshire Taconic. "We chose to make a gift of this picture by a local artist whose work has managed to capture an essence of our area. And, of course, the Berkshire Museum is the perfect destination for such a photograph."
Museum Executive Director Stuart A. Chase accepted the gift, thanking the foundation "both for hiring John Dolan to document the region and for presenting the museum with one of his images for our collection."
Dolan's influences for the project included the ironic colorist William Eggleston and the 19th-century romantic Peter Henry Emerson. The series captures the essence of the region with its lush summer fields, stark winter forests, lazy valley paths and winding mountain roads. The images radiate both the peaceful serenity of country living as well as its strong and rugged people.
Interestingly, this commission was Dolan's first series, and he admits that while the grant was a dream come true, it was also challenging.
"I could feel the sand of time slipping away as I hunted for the right images," Dolan said.
A graduate of Beloit College, Dolan is known for his commercial and editorial work. He is a regular contributor to Real Simple, Martha Stewart Living, Self, Brides and Cookie. His advertising clients include Sundance, Annheuser Busch and Lexus. He is also known for his photographs of celebrity weddings, including those of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Ben and Christine Stiller, and Matt and Annette Lauer, among many others.
To view this image and others in the series, visit www.berkshiretaconic.org.
