R
Mar 24–Apr 15, 1931

Festival of Religious Art: Religious Art by Artists of Chicago and Environs

Alfeo Faggi, Pieta

  • Alfeo Faggi, Pieta

  • Frederic Clay Bartlett, Crucifixion

  • Elizabeth Colwell, Blue Madonna

  • Chicago Public Schools, Seven Pictures in Colored Chalk on Christmas and Easter Themes

  • Julio de Diago, The Nativity- Birth of Virgin Mary

  • Julio de Diago, The Nativity- Birth of Christ

  • Alfeo Faggi, Pieta

  • Frances Foy Rest, During the Flight to Egypt

  • Edmund Giesbert, Composition

  • Enrico Glicenstein, Good Shepherd

  • Hazel Hannell, Madonna

  • Oskar J. W. Hansen, St. Francis of Assisi and the Birds

  • Alfonso Iannelli, Holy Family

  • Jean June Myall Reredos, Decoration, First Presbyterian Church, Chicago

  • Jesus Torres, Head of Madonna

  • Jesus Torres, Gethsemane

  • V. M. S. Hannell, Saint Peter

  • Guild of the Tabernacle, Religious Vestments

  • Louise Lentz Woodruff, Immaculata

  • Jean Crawford Adams,
  • Camille Andrene,
  • L. Arfsten,
  • Emil Armin,
  • Edith Jane Bacon,
  • Frederic Clay Bartlett,
  • Macena Barton,
  • Stephen Beames,
  • Helene Warder Beggs,
  • Irene Bianucci,
  • Joseph Biagi,
  • Fred Biesel,
  • Joseph P. Birren,
  • Verne S. Bordner,
  • Jaraslov Brozik,
  • Edward Everett Burr,
  • Louis Cheskin,
  • Chicago Public Schools,
  • J.M. Christie,
  • Domingo Cisauron,
  • Elizabeth Colwell,
  • Gustaf Dalstrom,
  • Russell Daniels,
  • Nena de Brennecke,
  • Julio De Diego,
  • Dorothy Dick,
  • Peter Charles Diem,
  • Dominican Sisters of Rosary College,
  • Hazel Crow Ewell,
  • James Cady Ewell,
  • Alfeo Faggi,
  • Ernest Fauzio,
  • Theresa Fauzio,
  • Frances Foy,
  • Gerald A. Frank,
  • Michele Gamboni,
  • Margaret Gardner,
  • Edmund Giesbert,
  • Karl Gasslander,
  • John W. Gatenby Jr.,
  • Todros Geller,
  • Granger and Bollenbacher,
  • Edward Gentle,
  • Eugenie Glaman,
  • Enrico Glicenstein,
  • Belle Goldschlager,
  • Frederic M. Grant,
  • Guild of the Tabernacle, St. Thomas the Apostle Church,
  • A. Raymond Katz,
  • Carl Hallsthammer,
  • Hazel Hannell,
  • V.M.S. Hannell,
  • Oskar J.W. Hansen,
  • Gaylord E. Hardwick-Wilkinson,
  • A.J. Haugseth,
  • Helen West Heller,
  • Arno Hempel,
  • Elizabeth Tuttle Holsman,
  • Alfonso Iannelli,
  • Emmanuel Jacobson,
  • Beauford Floyd Jones,
  • Raoul Josset,
  • Miguel Juarez,
  • Thomas Kempf,
  • Tud Kempf,
  • Lewis Levin,
  • Beatrice Levy,
  • Lowe and Speer,
  • Clara MacGowan,
  • T.L. Macrini,
  • Hazel Sinaiko Maryan,
  • Edward Mathews,
  • Benita E. McCormick,
  • John McDonnell,
  • Frances McGee,
  • Miriam McKinnie,
  • Verona Marie McManus,
  • Edward A. McMurtry,
  • Herman Menzel,
  • Joe Muggale,
  • Buell Mullen,
  • Charles Edward Mullin,
  • Charleen B. Murphey,
  • Jean June Myall,
  • Philip Nesbitt,
  • John H. Noedringer,
  • Thomas A. O'Shaugnessy,
  • Frank Patti,
  • Katherine Maxey Patton,
  • Helen Knudsen Pearce,
  • Robert Pelzl,
  • Delforest Penning,
  • Tom G. Pillsbury,
  • Albin Polasek,
  • Frederick Victor Poole,
  • Leslie Thomas Posey,
  • Constantine Pougialis,
  • LeRoy Ratchele,
  • Wellington J. Reynolds,
  • C.L. Ricketts,
  • Edith Roberts,
  • Sylvia Roberts,
  • William Roberts,
  • Emanuele Romano,
  • Hubert Ropp,
  • Jose Ruez,
  • Leah Shan,
  • Ruth Sherwood,
  • Sister Mary Stanisia, Academy of Our Lady,
  • Herbert Arnold Stark,
  • Helen Staube,
  • John B. Storrs,
  • Talmadge and Watson, Architects,
  • Grace V. Tieman,
  • Edward J.F. Timmons,
  • Magdalene Tolson,
  • Norman Tolson,
  • Jesus Torres,
  • Irvin St. John Tucker,
  • Ethel Tyrrell,
  • Enrico Vannucci,
  • Frank Hugh Wagner,
  • Carl E. Wallin,
  • Crewes Warnacut,
  • Lotan Welshans,
  • Askel Westerlind,
  • Agnes Clark Winkler,
  • Louise Lentz Woodruff,
  • Nicola Ziroli,
  • Maude P.H. Hutchins
  • From the exhibition announcement:

    This is the first of a cycle of three exhibitions arranged by the Renaissance Society as part of the annual Festival of Religious Art, celebrating the religious impulse in various ways. It will be installed at 333 N. Michigan Ave. The exhibition at Weiboldt Hall, the University of Chicago, which opens April 7, is a showing of “Old and New Masters of Religious Art,” and illustrates the identity of spiritual expression through the ages. “The Guelph Treasure,” shown under the auspices of the Renaissance and Antiquarian Societies at the Art Institute of Chicago, beginning March 31, presents a superb group of medieval objects, created at a time when the religious spirit was closely united with eccesiastical purpose.

    During the season of the exhibitions, programs of fine religious music will be given by musical organizations and choirs in co-operation with the Renaissance Society. The University Chapel will co-operate with an Easter Pageant on Easter afternoon, and several other important programs. There will also be lectures on religious art and ecclesiastical architecture. All musical organizations that are disposed to join in the spirit of this season are cordially invited to arrange appropriate programs and take part in the Festival of Religious Art.

    **Text by Daniel Catton Rich, 1931: **

    The* Exhibition of Religious Art by Artists of Chicago and Environs* is the first of three exhibitions arranged by the Renaissance Society as part of an annual festival celebrating the religious impulse in various ways. The exhibition at Weiboldt Hall, the University of Chicago, which opens April 7, is a showing of “Old and New Masters of Religious Art,” and illustrates the identity of spiritual expression through the ages. “The Guelph Treasure,” shown under the auspices of the Renaissance and Antiquarian Societies at the Art Institute of Chicago, beginning March 31, presents a superb group of medieval objects, created at a time when the religious spirit was closely united with eccesiastical purpose. The present exhibition is indicative of our contemporary local reactions to great religious themes. One thing only has been required of every exhibit. Does it contain a statement, reverential in value, and does it express that statement with complete sincerity.

    Such an exhibition is important at a time when creative art and religion are all too often placed at opposite poles. This separation is no new thing; it goes back as far as the rationalistic eighteenth century and was the chief order of the scientific nineteenth century. Except for isolated cases, it is fair to say that since the days of the later Baroque, religion has contributed no new themes and no new motifs to western art. The recent ornamentation of churches has been, almost without exception, a reworking of earlier styles with constantly dwindling vigor. The universal ecstasy which poured nto the building of an Egyptian temple, a Roman basilica, or a medieval cathedral, was diverted, broken up or lost. But at the present time there are indications that artists are returning to such an impulse and experienceing the vitality to be found in a sincere contemplation of spiritual subjects and states. Equally significant is the fact that established religious organizations are begnning to seek out the creative artists to decorate their churches and their altars; a number of the exhibits here on view are already installed in places of worship and are lent by the churches themselves.

    From the diversity of objects submitted, it will be seen that the religious spirit flows into many fields and many mediums. It is to be felt not only in painted and sculptured panels, not only in impressive designs for mosaics or stained glass, but in small and intimate objects, like a group of terra cotta stations of the cross, or some of the extraordinary BIblical drawings by children. Without doubt these objects gain in artistic consequence because they are made for a purpose. Unlike much of our contemporary art, they already have a use and fill an absolute need. In making them the artist has placed himself in contact with something dignified and universal. In the same way one is struck by the fact that the religious moment lends itself, almost subconsciously, to a commendable stylization on the artists’s part. There are considerably fewer realistic exhibits than there are exhibits in which the elements of design appear, heightened and enforced by their contact with deep feeling.

    It is the hope of the Committee that the exhibition will not only encourage artists who have hitherto found occasional and unrelated expression in religious art, but will go even further in stimulating new projects and new ideas for the future decoration of churches and chapels in Chicago. In the western world, our greatest triumph in this type of art came from its intense humanizing character. The more powerful it became, the more it gathered to itself all the elements of daily life and thought. If we are to have a great religious revival in the twentieth century it must develop its own motifs and its own symbols. Art is a union of tradition and discovery and among traditions, none has been more inspiring than the spiritual one. To our artists belongs the joy of rediscovery.

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