Old Master Painting, "St. Joseph and the Infant Jesus" at Auction in New Orleans

ART DAILYLOUISIANA - A recently discovered and undocumented Old Master painting of "St. Joseph and the Infant Jesus" from the School of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo is coming to auction in New Orleans at Crescent City Auction Gallery on Saturday, July 23. The Baroque painting portrays St. Joseph as a young father and the baby Jesus as a toddler holding a branch of lilies. Its provenance, as denoted by a label to the stretcher, is Rev. Canon A. Silva-White (possibly of Spanish heritage), St. Peter's Vicarage, Sunderland England. It is thought to have been de-accessioned circa 1968 and then purchased by a private collector before passing to the collection of a Mandeville, Louisiana collector in 1985. "St. Joseph and the Infant Jesus" carries a conservative pre-sale estimate of $8,000 to $12,000. [link]

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Michigan Artist of Jesus Paintings to Enter ArtPrize

GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
By Paul KopenkoskeyMICHIGAN - [John] Katerberg said his priorities as a Christian were honed when he returned from the Middle East in 1991. Brush and canvas is this artist’s pulpit, a platform meant to invoke a no-holds-barred relationship with Jesus. He is going to enter a painting in ArtPrize depicting Jesus with the word "sin" written over his body in different languages. "He died for all races, tribes and tongues," said Katerberg of Jesus. "It's for all the world." [link]

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Warner Sallman, the Artist Who Painted "The Head of Christ"

SALINA JOURNAL

By Gary Demuth

"The Head of Christ" (1940) By Warner Sallman

INDIANA - In 1924, Warner E. Sallman saw a vision of Jesus Christ, and from it created, according to Newsweek, the most reproduced work in art history, "The Head of Christ" (1940). "Many images of Christ have been painted, but this one has stood the test of time," said the Rev. LeRoy Carlson, founder and president of the Warner E. Sallman Art Collection in Chicago. Sallman's Christ was printed on the cover of the July 9, 2007, issue of Newsweek magazine, which called Sallman's painting the most reproduced religious work of art in history, having been reproduced more than a billion times. The "Head of Christ," [is part of the fine art collection at] Anderson University, Anderson, Ind.. Carlson said. "He painted with devotion, he painted with strength, and for many people his Jesus has become their Jesus." [link]

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Fine Arts Enrollment at Christian Colleges is Surging

HUFFINGTON POST
By Daniel Grant

SINCE THE 1980S, [a] fifth of the 105 members of the U.S. Council for Christian Colleges and Universities now have studio art degree programs -- double the number on offer in the 1990s. One of the reasons for this increase is the 70-percent growth in enrollment at Christian institutions since 1990, outstripping the 15- to 20-percent jump in other parts of the university sector. The surge in enrollment has left church-based institutions engaged in a delicate balancing act: training young artists -- with all that that traditionally entails in terms of the freedom to challenge any and all authority -- in an environment that puts religion above all else. When Bob and Sandra Bowden were scouting colleges for their daughter Jennifer in the 1980s, they found that the pickings were slim. The family eventually chose Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.[link]

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Tennessee Artists, Churches Work Together for Understanding

CHATTANOOGA TIMES FREE PRESS
By Clint Cooper

TENNESSEE - Can artists and churches learn from each other? That’s what the series “The Artist in the Church: Observations for Christian Artists and the Churches That Love Them” hopes to promote at the Salvation Army’s 614 Corps’ ReCreate Café today and the next two Saturdays. “Churches have had a love-hate relationship with art throughout the centuries,” said Tenika Dye, event coordinator for the ReCreate Café.[link]

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India's Akshardham Temple wins a "Wonder" Award

THE ASIAN AGE
By Priyanka Bhadani INDIA - Delhi has always been known for its architectural heritage but now it can boast of a wonder as well. The Akshardham Temple of Delhi has been included in the list of “Seven Wonders of the 21st Century” by Reader’s Digest. The 100-acre complex is on the fifth rank in a list that includes Buddha statue in Lushan County, China at the first position, Cave of Crystals, Mexico at second, Museum of Islamic Art, Qatar at third among others. [link]

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Review: The UK's "Devotion by Design"

THE AUSTRALIAN
By Waldemar Januszczak
UNITED KINGDOM - When the director of London's National Gallery, Nicholas Penny, took over from the overly commercial Charles Saumarez Smith - on whose watch the National had begun selling postcards of its greatest masterpieces redone in the style of Hello! magazine - he announced that he would seek to import fewer international blockbusters and instead would put greater effort into exploring the gallery's existing collections. All of which happened to me at Devotion by Design, a particularly hushed examination of the function and form of the Italian altarpiece before 1500. The show looks at how altarpieces were made, what they were for, where they went and how they looked originally compared with how they look now.[link]

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