Art Beat takes a look at the work of New Bedford native photographer Henry Horenstein

Photographer and filmmaker Henry Horenstein was born in New Bedford in 1947. He studied history at the University of Chicago and later earned his BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He studied with legendary photographers Harry Callahan and Aaron Suskind before becoming a professor of photography at RISD, where he still teaches.

Over the course of his long career, Horenstein has produced a remarkable body of photographic work that explores a wide variety of themes, including the visual exploration and intimate documentation of people involved in various occupations, pursuits and leisure activities.

Among them would be stock car racers and their enthusiasts, baseball players, blues musicians, racing horse groomers and jockeys and bettors, drag queens, burlesque dancers, nightclubbers, Cuban beachgoers, camel breeders, and country-western performers (including Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Waylon Jennings) everywhere from the Grand Ol’ Opry to honky tonk dives.

But as varied as those subjects may seem to be on the surface, it appears that Horenstein’s true overarching theme is that of subculture itself, a close look at groups of people, who by choice of occupation, lifestyle or affiliation may deviate a tad from the dominant mainstream culture.

In Horenstein’s current exhibition at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, he presents a collection of black-and-white photographs that he took when he was in his mid-twenties, in the early 1970s. There are a few interior shots uninhabited by people but most are stark, unflinching honest portraits of friends and family.

And really, after all, is there really anything more “subculture” than one’s own family?

All of the photographs were taken roughly fifty years ago, many in the South Coast communities of New Bedford, Dartmouth and on Horseneck Beach, as well as in Boston, Brookline, Newton and Somerville.

Looking at Horenstein’s “Close Relations” will, for individuals of a certain age (of which I am one), evoke a sense of recognition, nostalgia and perhaps some disorientation. After all, 2022 is as far from 1972 as 1972 is from 1922. And now, it’s almost as foreign.

The photographs were taken in the era of Watergate and bell bottom jeans, streaking and eight-track tapes, Roe v. Wade and the debut of Pong, and “All in the Family” and Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.” None of those things are touched but they certainly helped set the mood. The world was changing.

In a photograph titled “Adam, His Room, New Bedford, MA,” a tousle-haired boy, maybe ten years old, stares back at the camera. On a desk, there is a framed snapshot of a Red Sox player, probably Yaz, next to a Snoopy figurine. There are sports pennants displayed behind him that include the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants.

The wallpaper is decorated with images of astronauts and space capsules. On a dresser, there is a model rocket ship and a globe. It was a time of infinite possibilities. For a ten year old kid, one could hope that one might grow up to be an Apollo mission astronaut, a professional athlete, or a jetsetting international traveler.

In “Friend of Barbara’s, Kitchen, New Bedford, MA,” a woman sits at a table with a wistful look upon her face. Her name perhaps lost to the passage of time, she holds a cigarette between her fingers. Her hairdo is a beehive, likely held in place with Aquanet. Before her is a pack of Viceroys, a dirty ashtray, a coffee cup, a percolator and the prerequisite bowl of perfect plastic fruit.

There is a portrait of Horenstein’s father in his Boston office. He grasps the back of a chair and looks downward, perhaps impatiently waiting for his son to take the damn picture already.

The office decor includes framed photos, documents and paintings, and a vaseful of pussywillows on top of a pair of cinder blocks. There are two lampshades wrapped in transparent plastic. It doesn’t get much more early ‘70s than that.

There are dozens of wonderful photographs that line the walls, including portraits of middle-aged aunts, guests at Horenstein’s parents’ 35th wedding anniversary party in Dartmouth and his Bubbe, and a young hippie couple with a baby.

It is his own personal subculture that the artist is sharing. It may make you want to delve back into your own.

“Close Relations” is on display at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, 18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford until December 18.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Photographer Henry Horenstein is a native of New Bedford