El León Literary Arts: Bluebird in My Window, Frank Dituri

About Frank Dituri

Frank Dituri is a photographer who transforms the everyday, the recognizable, and the obvious into images that border on the surreal. His play on rich black and white tonalities and composition heighten the mystery of often somber images, giving his work a unique aesthetic and style.

Mr. Dituri's art is exhibited in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Twenty books of his images have been published, and his work can be found in numerous public and private collections. He is currently in the art departments at C.W. Post, Long Island University, Libera Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy, and is a teaching artist for the LTA/Guggenheim Museum Program.

Frank Dituri è un fotografo che ama trasformare il quotidiano, il riconoscibile e l'ovvio in immagini al confine col surreale. Il suo gioco compositivo di tonalità bianche e nere esalta il generale mistero delle sue immagini spesso cupe, e dà alle sue opere un effetto estetico unico ed il suo stile personale.

Le opere di Dituri sono permanentemente esposte negli USA, in Europa e in Asia. Ha pubblicato numerosi libri delle sue opere ed è stato recensito in molte pubblicazioni di prestigio. Le sue opere fanno parte di molte collezioni pubbliche e private. È attualmente impegnato nel dipartimento d'arte della Long Island University, alla Libera Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze e quale artista insegnante nel Programma del Guggenheim Museum.

Critical Praise

The images (of Frank Dituri) seduce you on two levels: aesthetically in the beauty of its forms and psychologically in the uncertainty they elicit. When we see the back of a person's head, we wonder and are interested in the mystery—we are forced to ask what's going on. The viewer must get involved or participate in the composition,' says Dituri. The varying shades of gray or tonal contrast present in his images are sensual, often abstracting the subjects to geometrical forms, while at the same time capturing a fragile moment in time—of spirituality, of stasis, of foreboding, of transcendence.

—Cristina Colasanto, la Repubblica (New York Edition)

In this latest series of low-lit, matte textured landscapes and solo figures usually set outdoors, the geographic location is of relatively little importance though the Italian-American photographer spends considerable time in the Tuscan countryside as well as in the leafy suburbs hugging New York City. In a fascinating way, he can transform a gritty American street of an old industrial river town into a fantastic and neo-surreal Italian city, as if shot in black and white by Roberto Rossellini.

—Judd Tully, Introduction to Lux Lunae

Frank Dituri is a photographer who is drawn to the mysterious. He photographs the landscape in twilight or at night, when gloom lends trees and foliage a strange and unearthly aspect that suggests something threatening because unknowable.

Dituri's images of people are likewise shrouded in some kind of ambiguity. We seldom see them whole or are permitted to know exactly what they are doing. Their faces are obscure and their bodies often seem less than solid. Those caught in his photographs appear to be in the act of appearing or disappearing--not just going or coming, but as though they are real and yet ethereal at the same moment.

Dituri also is drawn to what light can do to suggest varying aspects of mystery.He is sensitive to the moments when it illuminates portions of nature, when it sharpens the edge of a column or a wall, or picks out a section of the human body to create unusual shapes on walls and rocks and living matter. As a result, his images reveal forms that ordinarily are not seen and that therefore lend a haunting aspect to what usually is commonplace. In his images, the light often seems to emanate from an unseen source, suggesting a kind of sacred or supernatural illumination.

Dituri's images seem especially appropriate for this project because Cystic Fibrosis is a somewhat mysterious disease, more manageable now than formerly but still not completely understood. As many of the images suggest, those afflicted must seem to be living in a kind of half-light-- in a world that is somewhat shrouded compared to that of healthy individuals. Nevertheless, with their alternations of light and shadow, these images also project a feeling of hope and possibility in what otherwise might be a uniformly dark universe for those so afflicted.

Naomi Rosenblum, A World History of Photography