Hand of the Madonna, Feet of the Child, Clarence Kennedy

Exhibition Label: "Signs of Faith: Photographs from the Collection," Oct-2001, Elissa L.Anderson Kennedy, who received a Ph.D. in art history from Harvard University, was unsatisfied with the quality of reproductions available when he began teaching Italian sculpture, so he resorted to taking the photographs himself. In the pictures that resulted, he achieved a wide tonal range through careful experimentation with photometers, natural lighting, and reflectors. He later published these photographs in a portfolio-from which this image is drawn-as examples to others wishing to photograph sculpture well. Exhibition Label: "Art for Kansas: Building the Collection, 1988-1998 (Recent Acquisitions)," Nov-1998, John Pultz and Susan Earle Clarence Kennedy, a self-described "scholar-photographer," was the professor of Renaissance Art at Smith College for almost forty years. He began photographing Greek and Italian Renaissance sculpture himself because he could not find adequate reproductions to support his teaching and publishing. In addition to art history he was a specialist in lighting and photographing sculpture. Kennedy's photographs emphasize the quality of the light on the sculptures. They are noted for their high quality printing. "Hand of the Madonna, Feet of the Child" was included in a portfolio of photographs on the sculptural decoration of the Tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal in San Miniato, Florence. The donor of the photograph, Virginia M. Zabriskie, is an art dealer with galleries in New York and Paris.