Object number1987.53.68
Helen Keller
Date1958
Artist
Rosalie Thorne McKenna
(American, 1918-2003)
CultureAmerican
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 9 9/16 x 7 3/8 in. (24.3 x 18.7 cm)
Matted: 22 x 16 in. (55.9 x 40.6 cm)
Matted: 22 x 16 in. (55.9 x 40.6 cm)
Credit LineGift of the artist
On View
Not on viewPeriod20th c
Classification(s)
InscribedOn verso, possibly by artist, lower center in ink: HK-31; by unidentified hand, upper right in pencil: Helen Keller; in ink: , 1958; lower right corner in pencil: 87.53.68
MarkingsOn verso, stamped upper center: COPYRIGHT; Photo By: / ROLLIE MCKENNA / ONE HANCOX STREET / STONINGTON, CONN. / AREA CODE 203 533-0110 / Not To Be Reproduced / Without Permission / Please Credit With Photo; partially obscured stamp center: PHOTO BY: / ROLLIE McKENNA / [copyright credit label]; stamped lower center: ASMP MEMBER / AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGAZINE PHOTOGRAPHERS
On printed label, on verso center: © Rollie McKenna / 1 Hancox Street / Stonington, CT 06378 / (203) 535-0110/2126
ProvenanceGift of the artistVassar Exhibitions
Exhibition HistoryShooting Southern: Women Photographers Past and Present, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL, April 30, 2010 - July 18, 2010Label TextIn 1956, McKenna was assigned to photograph Helen Keller for a feature in America Illustrated, a Russian-language magazine published by the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) for distribution in the Soviet Union. McKenna visited Keller at her home in Westport, Connecticut, tasked with making portraits with a focus on Keller’s hands—her primary tools for reading braille, writing with her typewriter, and understanding the world around her. Yet while spending the day in Keller’s home, study, and garden, McKenna wrote: “...I saw that [hands] alone could not tell her story.” She observed Keller with her longtime partner and interpreter, Polly Thomson, making photographs that captured their intimacy and ease together. McKenna admitted to approaching the assignment with “resentment toward this paragon of virtue, constantly held up...as a model of character,” but was quickly won over by the “warmth of [Keller’s] company.” In a letter to her editor and dear friend Ruth Adams, McKenna wrote: “Just before I left she said to me ‘It is wonderful to have pictures taken without tension’. I hope these pix bear out her faith.” In response, Adams wrote to McKenna: “It is the best story we have ever done—in my opinion—and thanks to you.”
DescriptionWoman wearing patterned dress on right with hands on Japanese stone lantern on left; her gaze is downwardTerms
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