Picture in Focus: "Rise and Walk" by John Mosiman

September 11, 2016

Picture in Focus: "Rise and Walk" by John Mosiman

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 of different colors. This week's featured piece from the American prints section of the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection is the Mosiman serigraph, "Rise and Walk," where Jesus heals a lame man in what appears to be makeshift camp of society's outcasts. The composition in shades of gold, green, and blue is similar to another silkscreen image of the Calling of the Disciples already on view in the gallery of the John Mosiman profile page in the Sacred Artists section. (John Kohan)