NEWS

Shannon Pritchard

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2011

Shannon Pritchard, a recent doctoral graduate in art history, researched and wrote a remarkable dissertation on the work of the sixteenth-century sculptor Giambologna and his de’Medici patronage. Her work explores a broad cultural and political perspective and addresses a wide-range of interdisciplinary topics. In it, Pritchard considers the role of patronage, the function of the workshop, the relationship between the Counter-Reformation and the antique, and the cross-cultural activities between Florence and Jerusalem. Her work is a reconsideration of the art theoretical debate known as the paragon within the context of the counter-reformation.

Her research on Giambologna, Ferdinando de’Medici—and on the paragon between painting and sculpture — have already made significant inroads into our understanding of this important artist-patron relationship and will serve as the foundation for important future research. Currently, she is researching the Italian baroque painter Caravaggio, while working as an adjunct instructor in the Lamar Dodd School of Art at UGA.