Fitchburg, MA — The Fitchburg Art Museum invites the public to attend its annual Art in Bloom weekend this spring. The museum’s galleries will be transformed with 40 floral arrangements and 5 floral installations crafted by local florists, garden club members, artists, and community leaders inspired by the works of art on view.

DATES: Art in Bloom 2025
Event Date: Thursday, April 24, 2025, to Sunday, April 27, 2025
Art in Bloom Hours: Thurs 1:00 – 5:00 pm
Fri – Sun 11:00 am – 5:00 pm

Special Events and Programs:
Hidden Treasures
Event Date: Thursday, April 24
Event Time: 1 to 2 pm
Event Details: Contact the Education Department

Champagne Reception
Event Date: Friday, April 25
Event Time: 6 to 8 pm
Event Details: Join us for a special evening of art, music, and flowers!
Finicky Fork catering, Cash bar with specialty drinks (one complimentary drink ticket for each guest), Kay Previtte prizewinner announced, Emily Mazz Duo providing the entertainment. Leominster native Emily Mazzarella is a pianist and teacher who regularly performs throughout Central Massachusetts. She will be joined by acoustic bassist Sahil Warsi to perform jazz standards and Great American Songbook classics.

Tickets: $30 per person/ $25 members

Violinist Stefani Perrett Performs in the Galleries
Event Date: Saturday, April 26
Event Time: 2 to 3:30 pm
Event Details: 2-2:45 pm Contemporary Folk in Stephen DiRado, Better Together: Four Decades of Photographs
2:45-3:30 pm Classical in Evoking Eleanor

Local Violinist, Stefani Perrett started playing violin at age 8, after admiring her mother’s playing over the years. She has performed with numerous orchestras, and in venues from Boston to Europe. After Suzuki teacher training, she began teaching private violin lessons while working toward her violin performance degree at UMass. Now Stefani enjoys playing a variety of genres for all different types of events.

The Art of Bonsai with Michael Levin of Bonsai West
Event Date: Sunday, April 27
Event Time: 2 to 3:30 pm
Event Details: The program will consist of a display of beautiful bonsai and the talk will include all key points regarding history, care, and a complete demonstration teaching the fundamentals of creating a bonsai from scratch. The talk will touch on all aspects of traditional and contemporary bonsai and will be a fascinating overview of the art.

Event Sponsors include Rose Sponsors: Fitchburg State University and Spinelli CPA; Lily Sponsors: Achla Designs; Daisy Sponsors: King Farm, Manor on the Hill, Rise & Grind, All One Credit Union, Gallery Marquee, and Rollstone Bank.

Art in Bloom Admission:
Tickets:
$15 Adults
$10 Seniors and Students
FAM Members are FREE

View Events Online Here
Contact Aimee Cotnoir, FAM Membership and Events Manager with questions at acotnoir@fitchburgartmuseum.org or events@fitchburgartmuseum.org.

Fitchburg, Massachusetts (January 23, 2025) — The Fitchburg Art Museum (FAM) on January 21 announced it has been named a 2024 Mass Save^® Climate Leader, a distinguished recognition honoring 19 entities across Massachusetts for their ongoing efforts to curb energy use, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and guide the Commonwealth to a net-zero future.

The 2024 cohort of Climate Leaders is helping Massachusetts lead the nation in energy efficiency and meet the Healey-Driscoll administration’s ambitious 2050 climate goals by reducing environmental impacts and lowering energy costs. Each honoree exemplifies how environmentally conscious actions drive economic success and a positive climate future for the Commonwealth.

According to FAM Director, Nick Capasso, “In 2023 and 2024, our Building and Grounds Committee, led by FAM Trustee Tom DiConza, worked with Tucker Mechanical and Unitil to design and implement a full $1M upgrade of HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) and humidity control systems throughout our four-building, 40,000 square-foot physical plant, to provide comfort for our staff and visitors, and to protect the artworks in our permanent collection that we hold in trust for the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We were careful to design a system that would significantly lower our overall energy use and costs, while also reducing our direct use of fossil fuels. This environmentally responsible system also qualified FAM for over $90,000 in MassSave rebates. We are proud to receive a 2024 Mass Save^® Climate Leader award for our work to improve our Museum and to serve our community.”

FAM leveraged the financial and technical support provided by the Sponsors of Mass Save to make meaningful investments in energy efficiency and curb greenhouse gas emissions. FAM’s Elm Street and Merriam Parkway Buildings received extensive upgrades that include the installation of a building management HVAC software system to optimize the new 14 high-efficiency heat pump installed. In addition, a heat pump water heater and two high efficiency natural gas boilers were added to complement the heat pumps. The new heating and cooling systems reduces natural gas usage by 288.6 MMBtu and oil by 97.87 MMBtu annually. The project received a $93,925 energy efficiency rebate from Unitil for achieving a carbon emissions reduction of approximately 20 metric tons, which over the lifetime of the equipment is equivalent to the emissions 43 homes produce annually.

“The Fitchburg Art Museum’s hybrid heat pump solution will not only significantly lower their emissions output, but will allow them to heat patrons efficiently at all temperatures,” Unitil External Affairs Director Alec O’Meara said. “Smartly designed systems like these provide long lasting comfort and energy savings for our customers, and we’re thrilled to have been able to support their initiative.”

For more information about Mass Save Climate Leaders, please visit https://www.masssave.com/en/community/mass-save-climate-leaders.

Ask Now the Beasts weaves together art historical, literary and biblical references to create Tara Sellios’s vision of an apocalyptic world. Sellios’s highly detailed still life photographs capture the beauty of the grotesque as skeletons fly, insects swarm, and dried flowers dance. The photographs of Ask Now the Beasts are contemporary allegories of suffering and transcendence which share the Apocalypse as their metaphorical foundation. Through allusions to a variety of sources and her unique materials, Sellios deploys both dark humor and empathy in her poignant observations about the human condition and the complexities of religious extremism.

The exhibition and the series title, Ask Now the Beasts is derived from the biblical Book of Job (Job 12:7) but draws equally from the Book of Revelation. Combining poetry and prose, the Book of Revelation is known for its vivid imagery including a metaphorical grape harvest reaped by angels. Previously, Sellios’s work has focused on elaborate banquets and bloody excess. Ask Now the Beasts presents the moment when the feast is over—the wine has dried up and the flesh has turned to dust.

Sellios is fascinated by art historical representations of the end of the world, particularly the bizarre and otherworldly imagery of artists like Hieronymus Bosch and Albrecht Dürer. Sellios also draws from 17th-century still life painting, specifically Dutch vanitas paintings. Catholic imagery is also a rich source of inspiration for Sellios, particularly its dramatic lighting, seductive surfaces, and contorted gestures which are all present in Ask Now the Beasts. Additionally, Sellios engages with the history of allegorical paintings. Like her historical precedents, Sellios delights in detail and complex symbolism.

Tara Sellios, Abundantia from the series Ask Now the Beasts, 2023. Inkjet print from 8 X 10 inch negative, 40 X 26 inches. Courtesy of the Artist.

Sellios’s imagery is rooted in an elaborate interdisciplinary studio practice which combines elements of drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, and photography. Her work begins as an idea developed through rigorous research that becomes painted sketches that are the foundation for her still life vignettes.

To create her sculptural still lifes, Sellios collects specimens from all over the world, including animal skeletons, dried flowers and plants, and insects. Once she sources her materials, Sellios carefully constructs the vision from her sketch, placing each element by hand, using wires, pins and glue to create the illusion of objects suspended in the air.

When her still lifes are complete Sellios photographs them using only the natural light of her studio with her large format 8” x 10” view camera. In post-production Sellios removes the visual traces of her armatures, eliminating the wire supports from her compositions. The use of a large format camera enables Sellios to print at a scale that makes all the intricate details of her compositions visible.

This exhibition is the first presentation of Ask Now the Beasts, and the artist’s first museum solo exhibition, marking a new period in Sellios’s work. Biblically, the Apocalypse signifies the end of days, however, Sellios’s envisions death and destruction as a new beginning. Devastation and hope, darkness and light, life and decay all live together in Sellios’s work as they do in life.

This exhibition was organized by FAM Curator Emily Mazzola and FAM’s Terry and Eva Herndon Assistant Curator Sarah Harper.

Tara Sellios, Ascendo from the series Ask Now the Beasts, 2023 inkjet print from 8 x 10 inch negative. Courtesy of the Artist.

Tara Sellios, Subtero from the series Ask Now the Beasts, 2023, inkjet print from 8 x 10 inch negative. Courtesy of the Artist.

This career retrospective exhibition features the work of Stephen DiRado, the leading contemporary artist and fine art photographer in Central Massachusetts. DiRado has taught photography at Clark University in Worcester since 1982, and his work has been exhibited, collected, and published internationally for over forty years. In 2012, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for excellence in the creative art of photography.

Throughout his career, DiRado has worked in series, usually spanning many years and involving thousands of images, representing communities of people in Worcester and Martha’s Vineyard. His photographic practice is intimately intertwined with his life – DiRado carries a camera everywhere and makes photographs every day. He operates within many of the great art historical traditions – portraiture, landscape, still life, and the nude. Through an aesthetic that combines realism and symbolism, he evokes deep human emotions like joy, melancholy, boredom, sensuality, vulnerability, compassion, and most of all, love.

DiRado also creates striking images of the night sky, connecting celestial events with the earth and communities of human observers.

DiRado’s aesthetic has been forged by his experiences with photography in his youth. Photographs played an important role in the culture of his large, extended Italian family, memorializing gatherings, celebrations, and vacations. As a young man, DiRado was employed as a photojournalist by the Marlborough Enterprise-Sun, and in the early 1980s attended the Massachusetts College of Art, where he began to learn the craft of fine art street photography.

Stephen DiRado, Bell Pond: Mary Lou (Left) and Family, July 2, 1983, silver gelatin print, printed 2017, 9″ x 12″ Frame 19″ x 16.” Courtesy of the Artist.

DiRado creates most of his photographs with analog 4” x 5” or 8” x 10” view cameras, which allow unparalleled control of resolution, detail, tone, depth of field, and composition. The sophistication of these tools is matched by their inconvenience – the cameras, and the accompanying gear, are heavy, cumbersome, and expensive, and require physical stamina and a strong work ethic. For his recent and on-going series, Across the Table recent projects, DiRado uses a tiny hand-held digital camera.

Ultimately, for DiRado, photography is a means to forge empathetic relationships with people, create community, and express love.

Stephen DiRado, Martha’s Vineyard Beach People: Abigail, Aquinnah, MA, July 13, 2014, Silver Gelatin Print, printed 2014, 8″ x 10,” Frame 19″ x 16.” Courtesy of the Artist.

Stephen DiRado, Better Together: Four Decades of Photographs includes seventy-five black-and-white photographs, 1,001 projected color images, and three videos about the artist, his life, and his work process.

This exhibition has been organized by FAM Director Nick Capasso, and has been funded in part by the Simonds Lecture Fund, the Clementi Family Acquisition Fund, and a generous grant from the Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Endowment Fund at the Fitchburg State University Foundation.

October 29, 2024
Fitchburg, MA—The Fitchburg Art Museum invites the public to attend The G.O.A.T. Gala on Saturday, November 16, 2024.

A Night at the Museum provides support for FAM’s community initiatives, exhibitions, and special programs. This year’s celebration is inspired by the iconic sports photography of Walter Iooss. The Fitchburg Art Museum’s G.O.A.T. Gala celebrates our FAMily and embraces team spirit. Surrounded by photographs of some of the greatest athletes of the 20th century, this lively sports-themed evening is set to be the Greatest of All Time!

To kick off this special evening, the Red Raiders Marching Band and the FHS Cheer Squad will be welcoming attendees in the outdoor FAM Courtyard from 6 to 6:30 pm greeting guests as they arrive. Guests are encouraged to wear cocktail attire in their favorite team’s colors and can pose with props in our FAM photo backdrop. Finicky Fork catering will serve a menu of playful sports-themed appetizers and specialty cocktails will be served (cash bar with each guest receiving one complimentary drink ticket). There will be a Silent Auction where guests can bid on game tickets and sports memorabilia, and a DJ will be playing music in galleries.

The Museum thanks the G.O.A.T. Sponsors: Country Bank, and Enterprise Bank; M.V.P. Sponsors: Fitchburg State University, ACHLA Designs, Cabot Wealth Management, and Peter Laytin & Paula Callanan; and Rookie of the Year Sponsors: Michael DeMarco & Livia Umpierre, and Legends Grille & Sports Bar for supporting this gala.

Tickets are $40 for Members & $50 for non-members in advance, and $50 for Members & $60 for non-members at the door.

Contact Aimee Cotnoir, FAM Membership and Events Manager with questions at acotnoir@fitchburgartmuseum.org or events@fitchburgartmuseum.org.

Image: Walter Iooss, Blue Dunk, Lisle, IL, 1987, archival pigment print. Gift from Andrew King, 2020.151.26.

Dilworth paints the people and places he loves on a monumental scale and in vivid color, and over the last eight years his style has evolved to include intricate layers of paint, paper, and fabric. The fabric and paper in many of Dilworth’s paintings originated from the homes and closets of his family and friends, and their inclusion acts as a material manifestation of memory, honoring and memorializing loved ones from his hometown of Lawrenceville, Virginia.

Not only does Dilworth portray his loved ones—family and chosen family—but he repeats their figures to capture different facets of their personalities. Portraying, Dilworth offers an intimate view of his subjects and their internal lives as well as a powerful corrective to how Black people have been historically represented in fine art and popular culture.

After decades as a painter and a professor of studio art at the University of Rhode Island, Dilworth has a profound understanding of paint and how it reacts, transforms, and moves, and that predictably has driven his interest in cloth. Fabric, and the challenges posed by learning to use a sewing machine, have become sources of deep creative inspiration for Dilworth in recent years. The works in this exhibition trace this evolution, presenting for the first time a collection of compositions made entirely of fabric.

Mark your calendars! We will celebrate the opening of Bob Dilworth: When I Remembered Home on Saturday, September 28, 2024, from 2 – 4 pm. This reception is free for FAM members or with admission.

This exhibition was organized by FAM Curator Emily Mazzola and FAM’s Terry and Eva Herndon Assistant Sarah Harper.

On Her Terms: Feminine Power Embodied features seven contemporary artists who identify the body as a site of empowerment. Working in diverse media, artists Azita Moradkhani, Catherine McCarthy, Claudia Olds Goldie, Lindsey Beal, Maria Yolanda Liebana, Minoo Emami, and Nafis White experiment with representations of feminine embodiment to explore the personal and collective histories of women existing within oppressive social and political environments. 

Taking inspiration from the movement for women’s rights in Iran, modern hip hop, historical gynecological tools, and Victorian hair weaving, these artists engage the feminine form as a site for personal reckoning with historical traumas and their impacts upon daily life in the present. Patriarchal political systems, cultural norms, and religious demands of femininity are called into question. Rather than simply bearing the weight of such heavy histories, these artists focus on radical joy and beauty to reassert agency over themselves and their surroundings.

A phrase coined in reference to the continent’s rapid economic growth after the turn of the century, “Africa Rising” applies equally to contemporary African fine art photography, which has exploded across the continent over the last few decades. The exhibition Africa Rising at the Fitchburg Art Museum (FAM) is not a comprehensive survey of 21^st-century African photography, but it includes work by prominent photographers working throughout the continent today.

Ria Brodell’s ongoing Butch Heroes series recovers and celebrates previously lost moments in LGBTQIA history. Over the past thirteen years, Brodell has searched Boston’s archives for newspaper articles, journal entries, and court records that document people whose lives show evidence of gender nonconforming experience before the twentieth century. Their names and narratives serve as the basis for portraits inspired by Catholic iconography. These paintings (and the biographical notes that accompany them) memorialize the heroism of people who pursued life and love on their own terms.

This exhibition explores the life of Ella Crowell (1873–1897), the eldest niece of one of this country’s most celebrated and influential American artists, Thomas Eakins (1844–1916). Eakins was known for his uncompromising dedication to realism, often depicting his family, friends, and students with great psychological acuity.

Ella was an important figure in her uncle’s art and life: he famously painted her as a toddler in 1876, and she and a younger sister studied with him in the 1890s. Her mental health, however, declined during those years, and she tragically died by suicide in 1897. Ella’s parents held Eakins responsible for her early death, and the family remained forever estranged.

Portrayed by Eakins seeks to uncover the broader scope of Ella’s lived experience. Period correspondence suggests that she wished to chart an independent course, one in which she was not reliant on family or marriage for financial support or social relevance. Family photographs, archival materials, and art reproductions trace the contours of Ella’s life from her early childhood to her studies in Philadelphia. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a rarely seen, recently conserved double-sided oil sketch of Ella by Thomas Eakins, painted in the 1890s.

The oil sketch and related family materials were generously presented to the Fitchburg Art Museum in 2015, a gift of Eakins’s great-great-grandniece, Nancy Crowell Reinbold. These objects help us to understand a life lived in the shadow of one of America’s most acclaimed portraitists.

This exhibition was organized by Guest Curator Elizabeth Athens, Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Connecticut.