From: Phil deHaan (dehp@calvin.edu)
Date: Fri Dec 06 2002 - 15:41:19 EST
December 9, 2002 == FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Painter Warner Sallman's name is little-known. But his work is universal.
His most famous piece is the 1940 painting "Head of Christ." It's an
oil-on-canvas work that depicts Christ in profile. In it Jesus gazes into the
distance, his blue eyes cast slightly upward and his lips pursed. He has long,
sandy hair which flows down his neck and shoulders.
It's an image that came to represent Jesus for many Christians in the 1940s and
beyond. In fact current estimates are that "Head of Christ" has been reproduced
anywhere from 500 million to 1 billion times in the last 60 years on everything
from clocks to calendars to cards (during World War II it was distributed in
wallet size by the Salvation Army and YMCA to millions of U.S. military men and
women).
For Calvin art professor Henry Luttikhuizen and Calvin history professor Peggy
Bendroth such visual depictions of religion are fascinating.
They're especially interested in how people of Protestant belief often used
religious images in their homes, despite the absence of such images in their
churches.
And so in January 2003 they will co-curate a show at the Center Art Gallery at
Calvin that will feature 19th- and 20th-century popular religious images. The
exhibition, to be called "The House of God: Religious Observation within
American Protestant Homes," is made possible by a Calvin Center for Christian
Scholarship grant. It will open January 7 and conclude February 13, 2003.
One of the pieces, among the 35-45 slated for the show, will be the original
oil-on-canvas "Head of Christ" by Sallman (on loan from Anderson University).
"I think," says Luttikhuizen, "that it will be very interesting for people to
see the painting that for so many came to be Christ. It was never intended by
Sallman to be fine art. His intent was actually to use his art as an evangelism
tool. He was a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and he very much saw himself
as a evangelist."
Luttikhuizen says the upcoming show will allow people to see a variety of
images that Protestants and evangelicals displayed in great numbers in the early
decades of the 20th century, despite the visual austerity of their churches.
"As a result of the Reformation," says Luttikhuizen, "many Protestants, and
certainly most Reformed faiths, had sanctuaries devoid of images. But their
homes are filled with them. It's a very interesting contrast."
In addition to several pieces by Sallman there will be many works by Currier
and Ives, commercial artists who did poster-type pieces often depicting such
religious habits as family devotions and pre-meal prayers. Those are on loan
from the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton. It also will include two original
examples of African American depictions of Christ (both on loan from Urban
Ministries in Chicago): "Christ on the Cross" and "Jesus Praying in the
Garden," both done by Fred Carter in the 1970s and 1980s.
There also will be several mottoes, words used as visual images. These, says
Luttikhuizen, often were displayed by faiths that were uncomfortable with
specific images, say depictions of Christ, but still wanted visual reminders of
the faith on display for themselves and others.
Luttikhuizen hopes to dress the gallery like a home, complete with wallpaper on
the walls and furniture on the floors to put the pieces in their "natural
setting."
The exhibition catalog will include essays by Luttikhuizen (an expert on
devotional art), Calvin provost Joel Carpenter (an expert on the history of
fundamentalism), Calvin history professor Peggy Bendroth (an expert on
fundamentalism and gender) and Valparaiso professor David Morgan, author of
"Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images" and also
editor of "Icons of American Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman."
For a low-res version of the Head of Christ painting, see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/photos/special/headofchrist.jpg
For a high-res version of the Head of Christ painting, see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/photos/special/headofchrist2.jpg
The high-res version is available for media use with the following photo
credit:
"(copyright sign) Warner Press, Inc., Anderson, IN. Used by permission."
See http://www.warnersallman.org/
-end-
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