The Art Gallery of Stanford in Washington, D.C., is currently hosting a photographic exhibition aptly named “The Unexpected Smile, 2022: Selected Photographs of Dario Zucchi.” Stanford Gallery Director Adrienne M. Jameson writes in the catalogue’s Preface, “Imagine our good fortune in encountering Dario Zucchi’s work at the precise moment we needed to experience it! His photographs not only draw us back into the museum after a seemingly endless hiatus, but also enable us to revel in what makes an afternoon in a gallery distinctive, the intertwining of art and viewer.” (Catalogue, 4)

It was a happy coincidence that I encountered this exhibition. Running an errand in my neighborhood, I saw two friends about to enter the Stanford Gallery. They asked me to join them, and I began to smile as soon as I saw the first bold Dario Zucchi photographs of unassuming museum visitors looking at great art. The photo’s never show the visitor’s face, but are orchestrated so masterfully that the viewers themselves become part of the art. Using his camera as a paint brush, Zucchi portrays how we viewers merge emotionally into the art we are contemplating.

On a hot summer day, with news media blaring nothing but human incivility, I was entranced by the sheer imagination Dario Zucchi uses to create his captured moments. In his “Artist Statement,” Zucchi explained “I reject boredom as much as I reject over-excitement. Balance is what influences both my aesthetics and my work. Balance in composition, in color, in light, and in shade. And emotional balance, too. I want to convey a sense of serene pleasure with the enjoyment of visual beauty.” He is not interested in artistic whining or political tub-thumping—rather, his fondest wish “is to give viewers a break from their problems.” (Catalogue, 6)

I was determined to interview him—I wanted to discover what person harbored such extravagant inventiveness! Zucchi and his longtime curator, the National Gallery of Art’s Senior Lecturer, Dr. Eric Denker, met me at the exhibition. Denker has collaborated with Zucchi for years, and calls him a “master of juxtaposition, combining figure and canvas with visual acuity.” He views the photographer as a magician who uses his mischievous imagination to project a new level of understanding in how we experience art.

One of the first things I wanted to understand was Zucchi’s method in juxtaposing particular viewers with particular art—a process his curator has described as like being “a big game hunter, armed with a camera, who cautiously stalks his urban prey: the unusually dressed or coiffed museum visitor whose taste for art, maybe unconsciously, parallels their taste in fashion and hairstyle.” (Catalogue, 11) Mixing photography with great art poses an intriguing question in itself, as one medium can be endlessly duplicated while the other is a unique artistic expression. Into this mix, Zucchi acts as a creative composer, and his highly-creative “pairings”—using photography to meld viewer and canvas–produce works of art that are themselves unique to time and place.

Born in Milan in 1938, Zucchi was a child when he got his first camera, a Kodak. He got a Rollie when he graduated from high school, and while he continued to take photographs, he followed his father into a business career. He and his wife moved to Washington, DC, in 1978, and Zucchi’s interest in how museum visitors interact with art was sparked in years when his wife was a Docent at the National Gallery. Waiting for her to finish her tours, Zucchi would walk through the galleries. He became intrigued as he watched people looking at art, and by sheer serendipity, he began to photograph some of these interactions spontaneously.

He would quietly move into a gallery and snap a photo without being noticed. But his anonymity dissolved when he replaced his quiet Rollie with a Nikon, whose shutter snapped LOUDLY when he took a shot. He then changed his tactics and began a more formal method of composition: he would select several possible works of art at a museum, and then wander through the galleries looking for a possible “sitter.” He would ask if the visitor would agree to be involved, and the portrait process would proceed from there. Because they have collections of art he admires, his list of favorite museums includes the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Phillips Collection, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and Washington’s National Gallery of Art, particularly the East Building.

One of my favorite Zucchi creations involves Gustave Caillebotte’s “Paris Street, Rainy Day” (1877). Visiting the Art Institute of Chicago, he had selected the Caillebotte painting, but then spent hours trying to find a man wearing a black hat who could be melded into the artwork. He had almost given up when he spotted “a short, thin man wearing a black hat….I almost assaulted him, begging him to follow me.” The man kindly obliged, and Zucchi placed him in front of the painting in just the right spot. He was ready to snap photographs when the man turned and asked, “Do you want an umbrella as well?” Zucchi took a flurry of photographs “in a daze because of the excitement.” When he finished, the man simply closed his umbrella and walked away.

Another fascinating Zucchi story is connected to Rene Magritte’s “The Menaced Assassins” (1927) at the Museum of Modern Art. Magritte loved bowler hats—he wore them himself and painted one on every man in his art. Zucchi wanted to use Magritte’s “The Menaced Assassins” because “the proportions were right, the ambience was obviously surreal and intriguing.” But where would he find a man wearing a bowler walking around MoMA? As it happened, he found exactly that person–“an imposing figure with a dark gray overcoat, a thick black beard…(who) wore an impeccable bowler hat.” Dario said, “I could not let him slip away….I gave him my usual short explanation….He looked perplexed but seemed to understand….He mumbled something in a deep, bellowing voice that I could not understand, but he followed me….” Zucchi snapped many shots at random, and the result was exactly right. Unkown to Dario at the time was the man he’d corralled was dressed as he was because he was an Orthodox Rabbi.

Zucchi’s depictions of “chance encounters” include a lovely photo of two little girls dancing on a long staircase at the late-lamented Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington (above). Next to them is a sculpture by Anna Huntington of “Greyhounds Playing”—a pairing that becomes a perfect expression of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment.” (ZUCCHI AT 80+3, p.65). Dario wasn’t intending to take that photo at all—he was wandering the museum looking for a young woman wearing a dress that matched a painting displayed on the upper floor. His pursuit was interrupted by a phone call from his wife, and while he was on the phone, he chanced to look down to see the two girls dancing near the dog sculpture: They were “mimicking the posture of the two dogs….I realized that I was witnessing an inimitable parallel performance.” (Ibid., 23)

Since 2013, Zucchi has often paired viewers with images of animals. “Animalia” was inspired when he began to show his photographs at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History for their “Nature’s Best Photography” exhibitions. As it happens, his juxtapositions of human viewers and amazing animals have become some of his most popular works. A vibrant example of “Animalia” is displayed near the entrance of the Zucchi exhibit at the Stanford Gallery: right in your face, viewers are confronted with a jaw-dropping photograph of a frog’s bulging yellow eyes surrounding a young viewer’s red-knit cap. Zounds!

Dario Zucchi’s vivid imagination propels his wonderful storytelling. He is a riveting raconteur with a camera, and his joyful spirit radiates from all of his photographs, inspiring delight, wonder, and—as the exhibition title promises–many unexpected smiles on a hot summer day.

By Amy Henderson, Contributing Editor

THE UNEXPECTED SMILE, 2022: Selected Photographs of Dario Zucchi. Art Gallery of Stanford in Washington, DC. Open through September 30, 2022. Catalogue available via Adrienne M. Jamieson, Mary Lou and George Boone Centennial Director; ajamie@stanford.edu