Mary Correia, Custodian, from the series A Moment Collected: Photographs at the Harvard Art Museum, 2006-2008

Dugan’s portrait of Mary Correia falls into a long history of photographers depicting workers with the tools of their trade, most famously the German photographer August Sander’s massive portrait compendium, People of the 20th Century. This work comes from Dugan’s series undertaken immediately prior to the Harvard Art Museums’ closure from 2008 to 2014 for a major renovation. Dugan was interested in documenting “the end of an era… the passing of time, the idea of change, and the impermanent and fluid nature of each person’s involvement” within the museum, the university, and the larger communities from which it draws. Dugan depicts curators, installers, conservators, security guards, and here, a custodian, with a sense of seriousness and pride for her work.