Light Work donor’s photography on display

Light Work donor’s photography on displayMay 16, 2003Anisha Joseph

A major retrospective exhibition of the photography of Rita Hammond is on view in the Winner Gallery at Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, in Cazenovia, May 17-June 10. The exhibition celebrates the publication of “A Due Voci: The Photography of Rita Hammond,” published by Syracuse University Press this month. There will be a book launch and reception at the Winner Gallery June 6 at 6 p.m.

Hammond taught photography and art history at Cazenovia College for 20 years and won numerous awards for her work, including the Light Work Grant, New York Foundation for the Arts Photography Fellowship, Diverse Forms Project Grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts Grant, among others.

Before her death in 1999, Hammond donated over 400 of her photographs to Light Work. The exhibition is a selection of work from this collection and includes several different series of images. “A Due Voci” is made up of three groupings of photographs showing Hammond’s gradual transition from behind the camera as photographer to before the camera as subject. One shows the artist inserting her own image into famous paintings, the next shows portraits of famous people, like Ralph Ellison, Anne Sexton and Robert Graves, among others, and the final grouping is a series of portraits documenting Hammond’s life long friendship and collaboration with Lynn Moser.

Kim Waale, a sculptor and professor of art and design at Cazenovia College, was a friend and co-worker of Hammond and one of the editors of the book. Waale also collaborated with Hammond on several images in “A Due Voci.” Waale also worked with the Light Work staff to select images for the exhibition.

For more information on the book or exhibition, call Waale at 655-7309. For more information on purchasing the book, call Theresa A. Litz, Syracuse University Press marketing manager, at (800) 365-8929.