Bill Tague’s Berkshires

The Berkshires are famous for their stunning beauty and the almost eerie way in which they dominate the western sector of Massachusetts. They tower over the towns in their valleys-Williamstown, Pittsfield, North Adams, Stockbridge, and Lenox among them-and affect life there in many ways. The landscape was of tremendous appeal to photographer Bill Tague, who lived on a flank of Mount Greylock. Tague possessed a unique talent: he was equally capable of creating haunting landscape images as he was of drawing out the diverse personalities of his human subjects. Between January, 1952, and his death in November, 1990, Tague produced Eagle Eye, a weekly page of photographs, for The Berkshire Eagle. From images of Mount Greylock through the seasons to candid portrayals of faces at Tanglewood, at Lake Pontoosuc, and at the Clark Art Institute, to telling shots of Norman Rockwell and Anna Mary Grandma Moses, Tague’s eye was so astute that his life’s work constitutes a discerning mirror held up to his time and place on earth.