Student of the arts, historian, writer, and teacher, Lord Kenneth Mackenzie Clark has not only made significant contributions to scholarship in his chosen field of art history but also has joined that select group of scholars whose original ideas will remain seminal in the minds of oncoming generations. His book The Nude, A Study in Ideal Form, originally delivered as the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1953, is of that rare quality, and the same engendering force is felt in his works on Piero delta Francesca and Leonardo da Vinci, on Rembrandt, and, more recently, on Ruskin.
Lord Clark, in addition to his contributions to scholarship, has effectively made available to the general public the results of his work and that of other scholars in the history of western art. His most important achievement in this field has been the thirteen- part film series “Civilisation,” a history of the western world since the fall of the Roman Empire as revealed in its art, architecture, and literature. His exhaustive research for this series, his precise and graceful literary style, and the charm and humility with which he narrated the program have combined to make “Civilisation” an outstanding success on the BBC in England and on the NET network in the United States.
For his humanistic as well as for his scholarly achievements, and for his contributions to our understanding of the arts, the Cosmos Club is exceptionally honored to name Lord Clark the recipient of the Eighth Cosmos Club Award.
