There are few great biblical narratives and symbols of the Christian faith that have not found there way into the embroidery of the Kuna People of the San Blas Archipelago off Panama's Caribbean coast and this month's theme of the Good Shepherd is no exception. The unknown artist of this new reverse applique stitched mola cloth panel in the…
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This week's new image of the Good Shepherd from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is the work of Swiss Graphic Artist Max Hunziker, who has been described as a "Christian Surrealist" for the way he reveals symbolic meanings through unexpected combinations of images. The new color lithograph joins one already in the gallery of the more >>
During the month of June, when we all long to head off in search green pastures and still waters, I will be featuring new artworks from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection on the much-loved theme of the Good Shepherd. My first two offerings are the work of Czech Graphic Artists, specializing in book plates and small format prints. Zuzana…
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My series on Marian images in May from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection comes to an end this week with another painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe; this time, from the American Southwest. On a recent trip to New Mexico in search of new works from the region's saint-makers, I travelled to Ranchos de Taos to see if Lydia…
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As we continue to celebrate Mary in May, I have two new portraits of the Virgin from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, which present her as she is seen in a miraculous image given to the Aztec peasant, Juan Diego, in an apparition on December 1531 in Guadalupe, Mexico. The pair of acrylic paintings of this beloved Mexican icon…
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For my Marian images in May series, we return once again this month to the San Blas Archipelago off Panama's Caribbean coast, where an unknown embroiderer of the Kuna People created a reverse applique stitched image of the Virgin Mary, recently added to the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. In an oval titled, HOLY MARY OUR MOTHER, we see a…
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One of the most venerated icons in the Eastern Orthodox Church is the image of the Virgin of Tenderness, where the Baby Jesus wraps his arm around the neck of the Virgin Mary and rests his cheek against hers. I have two book plate prints on this theme to present this week in my continuing series on new Marian…
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Mississippi Visionary Artist Carl Dixon created another new image for the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, on display this week in his profile page, which takes us into May, a month traditionally devoted to the Virgin Mary. Dixon found inspiration for this mixed media carved wood panel portrait of Mary and the Baby Jesus…
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For the first Sunday after Easter, I'm presenting a new piece from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection by American Visionary Artist Carl Dixon. This Mississippi-based wood carver and painter has long been a fellow-traveller on my pilgrim journey and recently finished this mixed media panel for me on The Walk of Faith. In this contemporary version of the classic…
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As we enter Holy Week and my series on new images of the Crucifixion from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection comes to an end, I've selected a different kind of depiction of the Crucified Christ by Massachusetts Icon-maker Jodi Simmons to inspire meditations on the mysteries of his Passion. Simmons presents the 14th Century Mystic St. Catherine of Siena…
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Our destination this week is the San Blas Archipelago off the Caribbean Coast of Panama, where unknown textile artists from the indigenous Kuna people created two reverse applique stitched images of the Crucifixion, recently acquired by the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. These multi-layered, cut-out, and embroidered cloth panels, known as molas, were originally made to decorate blouses. They could…
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We make a return visit to the studio of Visionary Outsider Artist Rudolph Valentic Bostic in Savannah, Georgia, for this week's new Lenten image of Christ on the Cross from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. This mixed media painting on recycled cardboard joins two other studies of the Crucifixion in the image gallery of the more >>
This week's featured Lenten image of Christ on the Cross from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection has an interesting provenance. It may be a new addition to my collection, but it was actually purchased from an Italian craftsman in the San Polo district of Venice on a trip to Italy I made many years before I became a serious…
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Our Lenten series on new images of Christ on the Cross from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection takes us this week to Peru, where unknown textile artists have created two arpillera embroidered cloth panels, showing the yearly Procession of the Lord of the Miracles, when hundreds of thousands of pilgrims join together every October to carry a wonder-working Crucifixion…
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French Book Illustrator Paul-Emile Colin created this week's unusual Crucifixion scene, recently added to the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. The small format wood engraving first appeared in a 1925 edition of the collected works of the French Author and Nobel Laureate Anatole France, accompanying the text of his utopian novel, Sur la pierre blanche (On the White Stone). In…
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Ash Wednesday falls this year on March 1. In the weeks leading up to Easter, I will be featuring new images of Christ on the Cross from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection by international artists in a variety of media. My first selection in this Lenten art series is a small format drypoint by Czech Artist and Poet Bohuslav…
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We travel from Santa Fe to Taos, New Mexico, for the last new works I have to display that were commissioned for the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection on the theme of The Return of the Prodigal Son. Saint-maker Michael Vargas actually came up with three variations on the original Rembrandt painting in different styles and media now on view…
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New Mexican Saint-maker Marie Romero Cash created this week's new artwork, inspired by Rembrandt's painting of The Return of the Prodigal Son, for the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection. The two figure study in-the-round is carved from wood, covered in a layer of gesso, and painted in water-based pigments in the traditional style of the bulto sculptures of the American…
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As a collector of contemporary sacred art, I not only purchase finished works but also commission new pieces directly from artists to encourage them to explore religious themes. In the weeks leading up to the Lenten season, I will be featuring five such pieces in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection by three artists who took on the challenge of…
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My post-Epiphany survey of new images of the Magi in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection comes to an end this week with the addition of a new artistic genre to the Schools of Sacred Art listings where the Three Wise Men are a popular theme: Puerto Rican Serigraphs. The development of this form of print-making on the U.S.-controlled Caribbean…
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We return to Eastern Europe for this week's new image of the Adoration of the Magi from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, a color lithograph from Czech Graphic Artist Karel Oberthor, created as a greeting card for the 1981 holiday season. A gifted cartoonist, Oberthor loved horses and the circus. All this is in evidence in his charming depiction…
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This week's visual homage to the Three Kings from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is a painting on leather from an unknown Ethiopian artisan. The new image replicates a piece already on view in the gallery of the Ethiopian Icons page in the Schools of Sacred Art section and offers interesting incites on…
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Today is Epiphany Sunday, celebrating the coming of the Three Kings to worship the Christ Child. During the month of January, I will be presenting new works from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection by international artists in a variety of media depicting this popular theme of sacred art. This week's art offering is a trio of small-sized linocut prints…
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And now for something completely different in Nativity sets. British Industrial Designer Sebastian Bergne created this week's new manger scene from the Sacred Art Pilgrimage creche collection in a functional, minimalist style. The viewer decides just who is who at the Bethlehem manger in terms of the shape, color and placement of painted beech wood blocks, drawing on what…
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As we continue our global survey of new Nativity sets and scenes in the Sacred Art Pilgrim creche collection, we stop off this week at the workshop of Peruvian Folk Artist Claudio Jimenez Quispe, who handcrafts manger scenes in retablos, wooden boxes with doors that open to reveal story-telling arrangements of figurines. Jimenez Quispe and his family belong to…
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Russia is famed around the world for its nesting dolls. Not so many people are aware of the fact that in the post-Communist era these dolls within dolls, which traditionally depicted peasant women in fancy folk dress, sometimes display Nativity scenes. Called Matryoski in their homeland (a variant of the popular peasant name, “Matryona,” with connotations of The Little… more >>
Our survey of new Nativity sets in the Sacred Art Pilgrim creche collection takes us this week to Varanasi (also known as Benares) in North India, the holiest of Hinduism’s seven sacred cities. Local artisans hand craft Christian Nativity scenes in the same style as the brightly-colored wooden toy figures of Hindu gods and goddesses, birds, and animals, purchased…
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Thai Potter Duangkamol Srisukri created this week's new Nativity set from the Sacred Art Pilgrim creche collection in traditional Celadon (green stone) ceramic ware. These high-temperature glazed pieces are much valued for their resemblance to jade and are made following a technique brought to Thailand from China in the 13th century. Srisukri has given the conventional line-up of Nativity…
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My new art offering this week from the Sacred Art Pilgrim creche collection is an unusual cross-cultural Nativity scene on tree bark by an unknown Aboriginal artist from the Djinang people of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. Painted in natural ochre earth pigments on the inner surface of a Stringybark Eucalyptus tree panel, the Holy Family…
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The Season of Advent begins this month. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I will be featuring a new genre of religious art object from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, highly prized by collectors, whether they have any interest or not in "fine" or "sacred" art: Nativity sets and scenes. You can…
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My series on new American prints and printmakers in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection comes to an end this week with the addition to the Sacred Artists section of a profile of Barry Moser. One of the most prolific practioners of the art of wood engraving around today, the Massachusetts-based artist has illustrated…
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Robert O. Hodgell is this week's featured American Printmaker, the subject of a new profile in the Sacred Artists section. The son of a Methodist minister, he heard enough sermons growing up in Kansas to view the institutional church as an adult with a jaundiced eye, but his abiding fascination with the foundational…
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My survey of new American prints in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is coming to an end this month with the addition of three new profiles of American printmakers to the Sacred Artists section. This week's featured artist could justifiably be called the American printmakers' printmaker. Boston-born Letterio Calapai not only made prints, he also taught the graphic arts,…
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My featured American print this week from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is a color woodcut by Helen Siegl, an Austrian-born graphic artist who spent most of her life in the U.S. Biblical themes feature prominently in her work. Siegl considered her art-making as a form of Christian service, making her prints readily available for reproduction in church bulletins.…
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Western Christians will be commemorating the 790th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi on his feast day on October 4th. My featured American print this week from the Sacred Art Pilgrim collection is a monotype of Francis reflecting on his mortality by New Mexican Saint-Maker Michael Vargas. This most popular of saints is usually depicted communing…
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The church honors the Hosts of Heaven this month at the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels on September 29. In my continuing series on new American prints in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, I'm featuring an angelic image this week by Florida-based Graphic Artist Tyson Clutter, pressed from an inked plastic plate. The kneeling posture of the…
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This week's new American print from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection by Sister Mary Corita Kent dates from 1969, a turbulent time in the life of the artist nun, who had gone on a "permanent sabbatical" the previous year from the Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Los Angeles to make art in Boston as Corita Kent.…
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Illinois Artist John Mosiman was a master of a special genre of performance art well known in Fundamentalist Protestant circles in the 1950s--sermons in chalk drawings. He replicated the bold colors and simple forms of the quick sketches on Bible stories he made at public appearances in churches in small format serigraphs, reprinting the figures in silhouette on backgrounds…
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Virginia-based Artist Edward Knippers is best known for his oil on panel paintings of biblical figures in the nude, demonstrating his belief that since God took on flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, sacred art should glorify and celebrate the human body. Knippers is also an accomplished graphic artist and created this week's featured American print from the…
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The graphic works of this week's featured American printmaker have not fared so well in a time of controversy over "cultural appropriation," but Maryland-born artist, Ruth Starr Rose, genuinely sought to promote racial equality and cross-community understanding in the lithographs and serigraphs she created illustrating African-American sacred songs in the era before the Civil Rights Movement. My latest addition…
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In my continuing series on American graphic artists, the spotlight falls this week on German-American Printmaker Fritz Eichenberg, an accomplished wood engraver who illustrated a library of the world's greatest literature. Eichenberg had a special eye for the rich levels of meaning in the works of the 19th century Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, creating this haunting image (left) in…
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Philadelphia-born Lithographer Benton Spruance was fascinated with angels and depicted them numerous times in his works. This week's featured American print from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection illustrates one of the most dramatic (and intimate) encounters between the heavenly hosts and humankind, the story of Jacob's nighttime wrestling match with the Angel of God, recorded in Genesis 32:23-32. Spruance…
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This week's featured printmaker, Jean Charlot, was born in France, painted murals in Mexico, and taught art across the US, before finally making his home in Hawaii. His sacred art was strongly influenced by Mexican and Polynesian culture, incorporating rounded figures that seem molded from clay or carved in wood. My latest art offering from Charlot is a richly…
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Printmaker Abraham Rattner was born in the US and had no firsthand experience of the culture of East European Judaism like his contemporary, Ben-Zion, but he also turned to biblical themes in coming to terms with the tragic fate of the Jews in World War II. Beginning in the early 1940s, Rattner followed the path of another great modern…
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My featured American printmaker this week created powerful images that expressed the anguish of American Jews coming to terms with the horrors of the Holocaust in the aftermath of World War II. The son of a third-generation cantor in one of the largest synagogues in what is now Eastern Poland, Ben-Zion emigrated to the U.S. in 1920 but his…
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My series on new works of American graphic art in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection continues this week with a sepia monotype from Social Realist Eugene Higgins, a Missouri-born painter and printmaker known for his keenly-observed scenes of the marginalized in society. A monotype is a single image printed from an ink drawing on a plate. Higgins has used…
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This week's new art offering from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection by an American printmaker is an image of Christ's first miracle at Cana, recalling the 17th century etchings of Dutch Master Rembrandt. It is the work of Earl Stetson Crawford, a onetime student in the Paris academy of Early Modernist James McNeill Whistler who returned to the U.S.…
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During the summer months, I will be focusing on the graphic arts in America, presenting new works by American printmakers already in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection and adding three new artists who are known primarily for their prints to the Sacred Artists listings. To launch the series I have selected a wood engraving by Printmaker and Book Illustrator…
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Four new scenes from the Life of Christ, painted on parchment, have just been added to the Ethiopian Icons gallery in the Schools of Art section. I don't know the name of the artist who created these beautiful pieces, but they are clearly by a different hand than the other sacred images in my Ethiopian art collection. This folk…
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