Woodmere Welcomes Pope Francis

WoodmereArtMuseum

Woodmere Welcomes Pope Francis

BIBLICAL ART FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION

July 11 – October 18, 2015

CONTENTS

Foreword by William R. Valerio, PHD 2

A Conversation with Reverend Joseph F. Chorpenning, OSFS, Sister Agnes Reimann, SSJ and Peter Paone 4

Works in the Exhibition 20

WoodmereArtMuseum

Woodmere Welcomes Pope Francis

Biblical Art from the Permanent Collection

2 WOODMERE ART MUSEUM

Careful, strategic planning is, of course, necessary

for the functioning of any museum. However,

insofar as the entirety of Woodmere’s professional

staff can gather around our boardroom table, we

are able to react quickly in our work as a team,

responding nimbly to opportunities and engaging

with important events.

Such was the case when, little more than one

year ago, we learned that Pope Francis’ visit to

Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families

was no longer a possibility, but had become a

scheduled milestone in the history of our city.

From around the table at our weekly staff meeting

the concept of this exhibition formed as staff

member after staff member, excited about the

Pope’s visit, suggested favorite works of art

of a religious or biblical nature in Woodmere’s

collection that could be placed on view in honor of

the His Holiness’ visit. It was a fascinating process

because once we began in this way to build our

checklist, we realized that many of the artists

whose work we frequently show—Violet Oakley,

Walter Erlebacher, Frank Galuszka, Sam Maitin,

Peter Paone, Razel Kapustin, Julius Bloch, Michael

Ciervo, Benton Spruance, Susan Moore, Jacob

Landau, and Moe Brooker, to name a few—have

expressed their ideas about spirituality in works of

art. We also recognized that the framework of the

exhibition gave us the opportunity to show works

by artists we have never or have infrequently

shown, and this, for a museum, is a thrill. Ralph

Pallen Coleman’s Come Unto Me, a beautifully

executed painting of Christ enthroned as the

savior of the war-ravaged masses of World War

II, is one such instance, and it seems fresh and

powerfully moving in its directness. We are equally

excited about Quita Brodhead’s Crucifix and

Walter Stuempfig’s We Want Barabbas.

Insofar as this exhibition draws from Woodmere’s

permanent collection, we are particularly proud

of the quality of the works on view. We are also

grateful for some recent gifts of art, and with

regard to these, we would like to extend special

thanks to Anthony Visco, one of our city’s very

extraordinary artists, unique, perhaps, in his

dedication to making art that functions in the

church environment. Woodmere thanks Rev.

Joseph Chorpenning, OSFS, Editorial Director of

St. Joseph’s University Press, Sr. Agnes Reimann,

SSJ, Woodmere docent and artist Peter Paone

for giving generously of their expertise and for

participating in the conversation that appears in

the pages of this catalogue. Woodmere’s staff is

to be commended for its enthusiasm and flawless

execution. Rick Ortwein, Woodmere’s Deputy

Director for Exhibitions, was the chief organizer

and curator of the exhibition. The creative

elegance of the presentation and the depth of the

experience are due to Rick’s immense talent.

WILLIAM R. VALERIO, PHD

The Patricia Van Burgh Allison Director and CEO

FOREWORD

WOODMERE WELCOMES POPE FRANCIS: BIBLICAL ART FROM THE COLLECTION

Come Unto Me, date unknown, by Ralph Pallen Coleman (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Coleman Estate)


On Thursday, June 4, 2015, Father Joseph Chorpenning, OSFS, Sister Agnes

Reimann, SSJ and artist Peter Paone sat down with Rick Ortwein, Woodmere’s

Deputy Director for Exhibitions, and William Valerio, Woodmere’s Patrcia Van

Burgh Allison Director and Chief Excecutive Officer, to discuss the exhibition,

Woodmere Welcome Pope Francis: Biblical Art from the Permanent Collection.

St. Francis of Assisi figures prominently in the exhibition. It is fitting to note

the Pope’s reasons for selecting Francis as his name. Cardinal Walter Kasper,

in Pope Francis’ Revolution of Tenderness and Love: Theological and Pastoral

Perspectives explains, “At his first meeting with representatives of the media,

the new pope explained his choice of name with a reference to Francis

of Assisi: ‘He is a man of poverty, a man of peace, a man who loves and

safeguards creation.’”

RICK ORTWEIN: As I began to organize this

exhibition, I looked not only for works that were

overtly religious—ones that represented stories from

the Bible or the lives of saints, for example—but also

works that simply had a religious quality or spirit.

Moe Brooker’s I Can’t Keep From Singing #2 has a

title similar to a Shaker hymn. It’s very abstract, and

title aside, I don’t think people would necessarily

think of it as a religious subject. It’s an expression

of joy, for sure, but when it’s paired with some of

the other works in the room it really resonates as

a religious experience. The exhibition also includes

a number of images of Saint Francis, made by

Catholics and non-Catholics. I’m curious as to why

Saint Francis captures the imagination of people of

different denominations from all walks of life. Does

the popularity of Francis of Assisi explain in part the

popularity of our current pope, his namesake?

SISTER AGNES REIMANN: I have two thoughts

about it. One was that Saint Francis was an

ecologist before ecology was even popular. He

was someone who believed that we are one with

the sun, and earth, and stars; we are one with

the animals, and all people. So he did not get his

popularity necessarily from the Catholic Church.

FATHER JOSEPH CHORPENNING: I read

somewhere that Francis of Assisi was the most

popular saint in Renaissance Italy. There are multiple

layers to that. He resonates with environmentalism—

certainly the Franciscan spiritual vision is an

incarnational vision, seeing the presence of God in

the world. But this vision also includes other things,

like his love of poverty. But I was struck by Francis’s

A CONVERSATION WITH REVEREND JOSEPH CHORPENNING, OSFS, SISTER AGNES REIMANN, SSJ AND PETER PAONE


authenticity. This is what people really like about

Pope Francis—he’s real, he’s comfortable in his

own skin, and there are no pretexts. Even someone

who doesn’t agree with him on every point has

to acknowledge this. Pope Francis has a warmth

and an openness, and one of the characteristics of

Francis of Assisi was his openness to all kinds of

people. There’s a famous story in which he ministers

to a leper when no one would even go near this

man, and we see the same in Pope Francis. I don’t

know what the disease was, but there was a man,

terribly deformed, and Pope Francis went out to

him and embraced him; he sees people, he goes out

to them—he doesn’t wait for them to come to him.

WILLIAM VALERIO: Can we talk for a moment

about Benton Spruance’s print? (p. 6)To me it’s

an iconic image that shows Saint Francis as a

man of the people. He wears a brown frock, and

the artist even scumbles it up a little bit so you

can see it’s made out of ordinary fabric. Yet he’s

in Venice, with the beautiful Saint Marks Church

in the background—that’s the world of luxury, the

church of luxury. It’s dripping with gold. Does that

juxtaposition strike a chord with any of you, in

terms of Pope Francis?

REIMANN: I see a parallel. Francis of Assisi was a

very wealthy man; his father wanted him to take

over his business as a cloth merchant. One day

he had a vision and heard the words, “Renew my

church.” It had a powerful effect on him, strong

enough that he gave up his wealth and decided

to take up a simple life to renew the church. I do

believe that in this day and age, the twenty-first

century, Pope Francis also is being called to renew

our church. That’s the parallel I see. Also, as I said

before, he was one with earth and sun—I never saw

I Can’t Keep from Singing #2, 2001, by Moe Brooker (Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, Barra Foundation Art Acquisition Fund, 2003)


that figure in the sun before. You really need to look

at art with time and care.

PAONE: That’s the interesting part about that print:

Francis and his two people are in the square, almost

like tourists feeding pigeons, and yet, in the sun

there’s the crucifix where he’s about to receive the

stigmata. That moment is also depicted in Jan van

Eyck’s painting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

In van Eyck’s scene, it’s just a matter of fact—it’s

about to happen. But in Spruance’s print, it’s not

happening. If you remove that, it’s just a day at Saint

Mark’s Square. So, there’s more than the image

implies.

VALERIO: Peter, were you inspired by the van Eyck?

PAONE: When I first saw it as a boy, I was inspired

by the van Eyck for formal reasons without the

story of Francis. My interpretation is much larger

than the story of Francis. I left Roman Catholicism

at a very early age, but the images and the stories

in Catholicism are the first Surrealist ideas in art:

angels with wings, Christ sitting on a throne on

a cloud, the serpent. These things don’t exist in

everyday life, but they exist in faith. Think about

the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel

appears before Mary and informs her that she is

to be the mother of Christ. We see a winged man

presenting himself to a woman who is indifferent

to his appearance. Even the message that it will

be an immaculate conception is surreal. In the

twentieth century, when religious art had pretty

much diminished, there was one artist who brought

it to the top beautifully, and that was Salvador Dalí.

He was a surrealist. His Madonna of Guadalupe is a

masterpiece. He painted it in a Renaissance manner,

but he brought forth the surrealist quality in his own

time.

St. Francis— The Piazza, 1953, by Benton Spruance (Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 1954)


VALERIO: I’m interested, Peter, in your decision to

make two versions of this print, a white on black

and a black on white.

PAONE: I made two because of the story of the two

versions of van Eyck’s painting, one of which is now

in Turin and the other, as we discussed, is here in

Philadelphia. They were commissioned by a wealthy

merchant who had two daughters. The girls went

into nunneries in different parts of Europe, and he

wanted a version of the painting for each of them. I

wanted two also, so I printed the etching intaglio in

this very traditional manner, and then I did a relief

print of it, where you roll the black over the top

rather than pushing the ink into the lines.

VALERIO: So the lines are empty?

PAONE: The lines are empty and appear white. This

is a time-honored process, but I thought it was a

good idea in terms of there being two versions of

the van Eyck, since I’ve taken it from the van Eyck,

more than the story itself.

ORTWEIN: What interested me in putting this

print in the exhibition is seeing it alongside our

other images of Saint Francis. In Edward Hoffman’s

sculpture, it’s the Saint Francis of the animals: he’s

earthbound, and the work doesn’t really address his

mystical nature.

St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, after Jan Van Eyck, 1991, by Peter Paone (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2015)


PAONE: That’s the surreal quality. He’s both earthly

and heavenly.

ORTWEIN: Well, he’s much more real that way. He’s

alive, present. There’s definitely spirit there, one that

doesn’t exist in the statues of Francis you see in

gardens. But Hoffman’s work reminds me of those

in its scale and posture.

VALERIO: What I love about Hoffman’s Saint Francis

is the kind of a mid-century stylization of the figure:

it’s tall like a column and has an architectural feel.

What’s really nice is the communication between

Saint Francis’s eyes and the two birds. It’s about the

energy that passes between them, and then you

have a third bird that’s looking up, observing.

CHORPENNING: There’s another thread in the

Francis of Assisi narrative. I see it in Anthony-Petr

Gorny’s use of his own image as the image on the

sudarium (the veil of Veronica) (p. 9). One place

in the tradition where this comes through is in the

masterwork of Saint Francis de Sales, the Treatise

on the Love of God. Francis de Sales chooses

Francis of Assisi as the image of what it means to

be a lover of God, whether you’re a layperson, a

priest, or whatever. One interpretation of Francis

of Assisi’s stigmata is that it didn’t come from the

outside, but from the inside out. Saint Bonaventure

highlights this in his biography of Francis of Assisi.

According to Bonaventure, Francis had so shaped

himself interiorly to conform to Christ that the

stigmata appeared on his body from the inside

out. The seraph that appeared was there simply to

facilitate the process, rather than as its source.

The emphasis really is on personal transformation,

on conversion. In terms of Pope Francis, again,

we’re talking about different levels. He is focused

on the poor, and certainly on the renewal of the

church, but also very clearly, especially in the

program for his pontificate laid out in The Joy of

the Gospel, on a personal, transforming encounter

with Christ. I’m really struck by how much emphasis

he puts on preaching, on priests, on people. He

is saying, “We’ve got to renew preaching, and in

your preaching, you should be leading people to a

personal encounter with Christ.”

VALERIO: I’d like to turn for a moment to something

Peter told me earlier that I found to be really

St. Francis, 1960, by Edward Fenno Hoffman III (Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 1966)


provocative. Peter, you commented about how,

in the works of say, Jacob Landau, the stories of

the Old Testament are no longer stories of faith,

but rather stories of humanity. How is Landau

interpreting this? You made a distinction between

Renaissance images that were designed to convey

the stories to people who couldn’t read, and works

by artists of our age who can read and are taking it

a step further to make it art.

PAONE: Well, in the traditional images, people

were looking at stories, because they couldn’t read.

In contemporary images, the story isn’t brought

to the viewer—the viewer brings the story to the

image. So, it can be any number of things. The

basic image comes from a very traditional story, in a

certain time, but we are not in that time now. So, we

interpret that story in our own time.

VALERIO: Looking at Landau’s Cain and Abel, I have

to think that Landau is interpreting the biblical story

in the context of the Second World War. This is

brother against brother.

PAONE: The two figures are battling. It’s humanity

against humanity.

ORTWEIN: These are second-generation humans.

Cain and Abel were the first children of man, so by

the second generation, jealousy and violence are

prevalent. The stories are universal and again speak

to each generation.

REIMANN: Adam and Eve, if we put them on Earth

today, would be having the same power struggle

that Adam and Eve did with the snake. You’re

right—humanity is humanity, whether it was way

back then, or today.

A Sudarium, 1994 by Anthony-Petr Gorny (Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2014)


Saint Rita in Ecstacy, 2000, by Anthony Visco (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2015)


CHORPENNING: And that’s the appeal, Peter,

as you said, to whether believers, non-believers,

practitioners of faith, non-practitioners of faith—

these works have a broader appeal because they

are archetypal stories. Sociologists of religion have

long pointed out that the stories are among the

most enduring aspects of Catholicism because they

capture people’s imaginations, and people relate

them to their own experience; stories give people

a framework to make sense of their own lives and

their own struggles, their joys and sorrows, and so

on.

PAONE: But now, if you give a title to something,

it can make it religious. For example, the Rothko

Chapel consists of fourteen dark-colored canvases.

If you think it’s religious, it’s because you’re reading

into those voids. Are they religious? Are they

sacred? Are they something that you would worship

in a chapel? It depends on who you are, and how

you interpret this. So, there’s a switch here, because

now you can label something as being something,

although you can’t read it as being that.

CHORPENNING: Right. And there are debates about

the titling even of some religious paintings that

come from the Renaissance and the Middle Ages,

because the titles have been assigned by scholars.

They haven’t, necessarily, been given by the artist.

So, for example, there are a variety of nativities.

Well, is the nativity only the moment of the birth?

Or does the nativity include the adoration of the

shepherds? Or some other moment?

ORTWEIN: Your description, Father, of the impact

of scholars in applying titles can be illustrated in

Anthony Visco’s experience. I became familiar with

Visco’s work from seeing it in churches. His bust

of Saint Rita in our collection was made for the

National Shrine of Saint Rita of Cascia on Broad

Street, Philadelphia. I asked him if he’d had to make

compromises when working with clients versus

working independently in the studio and revealing

the work after completion. He explained that it

was not a sacrifice to work in this manner, that

in his early artistic career he made site-specific

installations in the Arte Povera movement. Often

executed outdoors, they were temporary works,

but they were integrated into the site. He sees the

work for sacred spaces that he engages in now as a

continuation of those same thoughts and interests.

As a young man, he went to Italy to see the

Masaccios and other artists he knew from art history

texts. When he saw them firsthand, the purity and

isolation of the artwork was missing. They weren’t

framed and surrounded by white like they appear

in books. They were in living spaces; they had

utilitarian function. There were candles all around

them. People stopped not just to look at them for

color and light and perspective, but to contemplate

the events depicted. It’s the reason they’re there.

These images, in the Catholic sense, provide the

occasion for meditation and contemplation. They’re

not objects of worship. That really resonated with

Visco, and he started doing this kind of work.

VALERIO: Rick, I know the bust of Saint Rita that

Visco gave to Woodmere is a fragment, and yet,

it’s something that he’s preserved in his studio as a

work of art. How is it different or similar?

ORTWEIN: Well, it has a completely different

context, so it hangs over the door of his studio.

You wouldn’t necessarily guess it based solely on

the bust, but it’s describing the moment of ecstasy

when she receives the stigmata, which in this case

manifests in a single wound on her forehead from

the crown of thorns, rather than the wounds of

the hands and feet that Francis of Assisi bore. I


certainly don’t look at the bust and envision the full

setting with flowers and candles that surround the

sculpture at the shrine.

VALERIO: What’s interesting to me, relative to

what you said about Visco’s journey as an artist,

is that he’s given this to the museum, and so

he’s imagining that this piece is going to live in a

very different context where people are going to

approach it from a very different point of view. And

yet this will certainly function very well as a work

of art in a museum, and perhaps it’s the fact that it

is a fragment that makes us recognize it more as a

museum-ready work of art than the full spectrum

with the candles and flowers.

PAONE: Well, it’s interesting how a work of art

transcends from one thing to the next. When

you’re in a studio making a sculpture, it’s just clay,

it’s just plaster. Then it goes into bronze, and it’s

still just your sculpture. But all of a sudden it’s in

a church and it becomes something more. I did

a very large painting of the Resurrection for the

Armenian Church and it gave me all the problems of

a painting. Then it goes to the church, and there it

is with people genuflecting in front of it. It blew my

mind. It was no longer mine. It really was no longer

that painting I tried to solve, it was something

religious. That’s what we’re looking at here, and

the fragment is part of Visco’s thinking process,

his creativity. It’s not meant to be worshiped or

looked at, and yet suddenly it is and it’s no longer

that problem that you have to solve. That’s what’s

interesting not only about art, but about art that

goes to the people, as a opposed to going back

in your rack, or going to a museum without the

religious context—it has two lives.

ORTWEIN: In his living room, Visco had a sculpture

of Saint Padre Pio, which I was familiar with

from the Church of Saint John the Evangelist

on Thirteenth Street, Philadelphia. The sculpture

presents him slightly bent at the waist, hands out,

clad in a Franciscan robe. His foot is protruding

from beneath the robe. People have such devotion

to him, they hold the hands of the statue while they

meditate and pray to the saint for his intercession.

When I told the artist I had witnessed that, he said,

“Well, when people ask me what kind of sculpture

I make, I say I make sculptures that old ladies kiss.”

But, he pointed out that he had to have that posture

where the foot came out from underneath the robe

because people like to touch the feet.

PAONE: That’s the other interesting thing about

religious sculpture that you don’t get in any other

kind of sculpture. People look at it, and believe

that it’s real, and therefore they have to touch it. In

Maquette for Jesus Breaking Bread, 1975, by Walter Erlebacher (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist’s wife, Martha Mayer Erlebacher, 2009)


other sculpture, even if it’s pre-Raphaelite sculpture

but not religious, they look at it just to look at it,

but in religious sculpture, you’ll always find a shiny

spot that’s a little more worn than anywhere else

because people need to touch it because they

believe it’s real. That’s the belief that goes into a

religious representational sculpture.

CHORPENNING: Because it becomes an object of

devotion and admiration.

VALERIO: The images of the Madonna by Violet

Oakley and Bo Bartlett were made a hundred years

apart, but the two artists used a similar strategy of

making the Madonna a real woman. You can tell in

both cases that the artists were trying to avoid the

trappings of a religious context, but to make images

that nonetheless find their spirituality in realism.

PAONE: I have a funny story about that. When I

was in college, I took art education and we had

to practice-teach from kindergarten to twelfth

grade. I was in a first-grade class and the students

were going to make drawings. One boy drew a

round head, and added two eyes and a nose. I

asked, “Who is that?” And he said, “That’s God.” I

said, “People don’t know what God looks like.” He

said, “They do now.” [laughs] That’s the power of

imagery and conviction.

VALERIO: We can see that realism in Walter

Erlebacher’s maquette of Jesus as well. The artist

makes it appear that the toga has rolled under, as if

there’s been a process of revealing of Christ’s upper

body. This is not a towel that he’s wrapped in the

way you wrap a towel around yourself when you get

out of the shower—it’s been wrapped under from

above, and that’s a very specific strategy on the

artist’s part, because it makes you aware that this

body of Christ is a revelation.

REIMANN: Yes, it makes the body visible, and

human.

CHORPENNING: The bread and the body are the

same.

ORTWEIN: We were talking earlier about

abstraction and realism in religion—this is about the

body, the corpus. The fact that the torso is revealed

and not draped makes him all the more real. This is

an encounter with a person.

CHORPENNING: Yes. You see the glorious wounds

of the risen Jesus. In his homily at the mass for the

canonization of Saints John XXIII and John Paul

II, Pope Francis explained that the wounds on the

risen Jesus’s body never pass away because they’re

the enduring sign of God’s love for us, as 1 Peter

2:24 reminds us: “By his wounds you have been

healed.” As the memorial of the Lord’s Passion,

death, and resurrection, the Eucharist makes this

healing accessible to us. When Jesus’s side is

pierced by the soldier’s lance and blood and water

immediately flowed out, we understand that the

water and blood are symbolic of the sacraments of

baptism and Eucharist.

REIMANN: Even his gesture, the way he is handing

out the bread, says take, and eat.

CHORPENNING: Yes. Just as in the Resurrection

narratives about the appearances of the risen Jesus,

he keeps telling his disciples, take this, eat it.

VALERIO: We also have Erlebacher’s maquette

of Bishop Neumann, which was never realized. It

shows Bishop Neumann on the cobblestones of

Philadelphia, being approached by people.


VALERIO: We also have Erlebacher’s maquette

of Bishop Neumann, which was never realized. It

shows Bishop Neumann on the cobblestones of

Philadelphia, being approached by people.

CHORPENNING: My first thought when I saw this

was that Saint John Neumann was exactly the

kind of bishop that Pope Francis wants. He was a

bishop of the people and a very able administrator,

although he was not highly thought of by the clergy,

and by some other bishops, because he had this

thick Bohemian accent and he was apparently not

impressive in appearance. When he died, his critics

said they were astounded by the outpouring of the

people.

REIMANN: Now, this is important, for the history of

Philadelphia as well, because John Neumann was

very instrumental in starting Catholic education in

Philadelphia, and then it spread.

VALERIO: Well, here you see the nun with the child,

and you understand that the nun is a teacher.

REIMANN: She is a Sister of Saint Joseph, and she’s

talking to this young man about education, which

was very influential.

ORTWEIN: I spoke to Anthony Visco about this

piece too, because, he was a studio assistant for

Walter Erlebacher. The location that Erlebacher

envisioned wasn’t next to a church necessarily, but

in a public square, perhaps along the Benjamin

Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, to emphasize

the impact that Neumann had on the culture as a

citizen, not only a cleric.

PAONE: I’d like to add something about Walter. I

met him in 1960, when we were both teaching at

Pratt, and he would often say to me, “I’m doing

something nobody else is doing.” He was doing this


Renaissance concept of art, which, of course, in

1960, nobody was doing and they didn’t want to be

caught doing it. That was a very brave thing for him

to do at that time.

VALERIO: Erlebacher was very interested in the

art of Michelangelo, as was Jacob Landau. One of

the things I learned about Landau is that he had a

reproduction of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel’s on

the ceiling of his studio.

ORTWEIN: These are Landau’s studies for the

cycle of windows called The Prophetic Quest, at

Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park.

VALERIO: When you see the way this snake is

wrapped around these figures, or the general

contortion of the figures, you really do think of

the Sistine Chapel. The figure with his arm out is

reminiscent of God, the father, touching Adam.

But Landau isn’t telling the same stories that

Michelangelo does. What is this story?

CHORPENNING: Hosea’s wife was unfaithful and, of

course, he was very distressed. God told him, that is

how it is between myself and Israel.

REIMANN: Right. And the hymn notes, “Come back

to me with all your heart. Give yourself back to me,”

and you see the lovers here. This other figure is

Abraham sacrificing his son. God said to Abraham,

“If you love me, would you sacrifice your son?”

Abraham was heartbroken, but if that’s what God

wanted, he would do it. And then God said it was

just a test.

CHORPENNING: And it was also because God made

the promise to Abraham that he would be the father

of many nations and his descendants would be as

numerous the stars in the sky and the sands on the

Calling of Elisha, 1920, by Edith Emerson (Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 1958)


promise, and this is how the promise will be fulfilled,

and then God says, to Abraham, “I want you to take

Isaac and sacrifice him.”

VALERIO: This one is Elijah?

ORTWEIN: Yes, and we have two designs for

windows for the same congregation: the Landau

and the color study for the window that Edith

Emerson designed. Emerson’s was made for the

synagogue when it was located at Broad and

Columbia Streets in Philadelphia.

CHORPENNING: This one is the calling of Elisha.

Elisha was selected as the replacement of Elijah.

VALERIO: We also have The Three Communions by

Violet Oakley. Oakley was a Christian Scientist, and

she made many works of art for Christian Scientist

churches here in Philadelphia and, I believe, beyond.

ORTWEIN: It is also a study and we’re not sure if

it was ever realized. It depicts the last supper at

the bottom. The center refers to what Father Joe

referenced earlier when we were looking at the

Erlebacher Christ, the post-resurrection meal on the

shore where Christ greets the apostles, cooks them

fish for breakfast, and invites them to eat. He also

eats the fish with them, showing that his is a real

body, not an apparition. The final scene above is the

celestial banquet with, again, Christ presiding.

VALERIO: We’re at the very beginning stages of

a big research project on Violet Oakley, and really

sorting out the large amount of material of hers

that we have here at Woodmere. We have a lot of

work to do. Oakley is one of the great storytellers.

Another artist in the show is Quita Brodhead. We’ve

spoken mostly about artists who are working in a

narrative tradition, but Brodhead is a modernist

painter, a student of the great Arthur Carles. This

painting is unusual in her body of work, insofar as

it’s a crucifixion. You can see three crosses—the

other two people who were crucified with Jesus

were thieves, right?

REIMANN: Yes.

ORTWEIN: This is actually a still life painting—

Brodhead had a crucifix in her house, and that’s

how the painting began. But she turned it into a

dramatic, world-altering event.

VALERIO: Can we talk a bit about Susan Moore’s

work, Thy Will Be Done? Agnes, how do you

interpret this painting?

REIMANN: You see the tattoo on one arm, you see

the figure of Christ, you see the heart, the pierced

heart—the sacred heart, is the way we interpret it—

and yet, he’s got the love heart on the other arm, I

love John, or I love Mary.

Crucifix, 1940, by Quita Brodhead (Private Collection)


VALERIO: But, this heart has thorns on it too, right?

REIMANN: Right. And there is very little color.

There’s a skeleton on the one side and helping

hands on the other side, and the words Thy will be

done.

VALERIO: The artist told me that she encountered a

person whose body was tattooed like this and she

asked him to pose for her. This is a rendering of the

tattoos that actually existed on his body. How do

you interpret this idea of the face of Christ tattooed

on a person’s body, in terms of being one with God?

PAONE: That’s another version of wearing a cross.

ORTWEIN: Yes, it could be armor, protection. It

could be camouflage, someone to hide behind.

REIMANN: It could be nothing religious at all. Do

you see rock stars with their crosses on? Wearing

rosaries? And it’s not a religious symbol for them,

it’s a piece of jewelry. So is this a religious armor?

PAONE: Whoever this man is, it’s religious, because

he has the head of Christ, he has Mary, he has the

sacred heart. He knew the symbols.

VALERIO: What does the phrase “Thy will be done”

come from?

CHORPENNING: It’s from the “Our Father.” And

from the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus says,

“Father, if you are willing, let this cup pass from me,

however, not my will, but Thy will be done.“

ORTWEIN: It’s also interesting the way that the

head is replaced by the head of Christ. The figures’

hands, the real hands of the model, could even be

the hands of Christ, as well as the drawn hands

of the tattoo. The way things disintegrate, and

reconfigure, it’s very interesting. I’m reminded of

the statement of Saint Paul to “put on Christ” and

“clothe yourself with Christ,” which is to remind

humanity to divorce itself from preoccupation with

things of the flesh. So this painting denies flesh

by covering it, while celebrating it by making it an

offering to God.

REIMANN: Well, this has really been a sacramental

encounter with all of you, just by our understanding

of each other and the talking from our minds

and hearts in a real way. That’s not the religious

sacrament we talk about, but we’re constantly in

sacramental union with people.

CHORPENNING: Well, current writing on spirituality

speaks about the sacrament of friendship.

VALERIO: And when you say sacraments, you mean

like the sacred aspects of friendship? And itThy Will Be Done, 2007, by Susan Moore (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2012)


becomes something sacred?

CHORPENNING: A sacrament mediates the divine,

and that the divine can be mediated in human

relationships. This idea is grounded in our spiritual

tradition. Francis de Sales insisted that spiritual

friendship was indispensable for living the Christian

life. He did this in an era when people were suspect

of friendship. In the early seventeenth century, de

Sales was saying that people who want to lead

a Christian life need to have good, solid spiritual

friendships because you need that support, you

need to accompany one another on the way and to

have people in your life who share your values, but

can also challenge you. Authentic friendship is not

just about agreeing, but having someone who, in a

context of love and friendship, can challenge you.

REIMANN: Some of the conversation we’ve had in

this room today on interpretation was sacramental,

because we each got into the heart differently.

CHORPENNING: And that’s what Pope Francis is

talking about. In the Joy of the Gospel, he says that

we need to recover the idea of accompanying one

another, because we’re so busy being superficial,

being self-absorbed, and just trying to see people

and then get away from them, that we don’t let

anybody in. The Pope’s challenging people on many

fronts—not only the church, but humanity, society.

VALERIO: Agnes and Father Joe, you’re both

people of the church who have built lives involved

with the arts. Would you talk about the place of art

in your personal lives?

REIMANN: When I was a child, we had a little

book called Picture Study that included Millet’s

the Angelus. I loved art from the moment I saw

that book. When I started teaching high school, I

taught an advanced course in the humanities, so I

had all sorts of slide reproductions. Watching the

faces of the students when we talked about art

just expanded my love for art. So, that’s where it

goes back to. I always wanted to be a docent in a

museum. I remember doing my presentation here at

Woodmere and looking at the fifteen people around

me, and saying I wanted to do this my whole life.

CHORPENNING: It’s interesting that you ask that

question. I don’t know where I started exactly, but

I do remember growing up that we had a very

beautiful Parish church. I was enamored by it—it

was elegant, but also simple. Its appointments

were post–World War II, although the church was

much older than that, but it was renovated after

the war. Actually, the church is dedicated to Saint

Francis of Assisi, and the sanctuary has a beautiful,

Italian wood panel mosaic of Saint Francis. It’s the

kind of thing you really didn’t see then in too many

places, it would have been thought very “modern,”

but presumably it reflected the taste of Monsignor

Maguire, the pastor, who seems to have had a pretty

refined aesthetic sense. When I was in college, I had

the opportunity to study in Europe, and the art just

kind of captured me.

VALERIO: In Rome?

CHORPENNING: Well, I studied in Spain, at

Salamanca, and also in Paris and had the

opportunity to travel throughout Europe, including

visiting Rome. When I went to graduate school at

John Hopkins, I was in a Ph.D. program in romance

languages, but we were encouraged to explore

other areas of intellectual interest so my fellow

students were taking courses in history and other

subjects. I spoke to my mentor and he said, “Why

don’t you take some courses in art history?” So, we

charted that out, and I did it, and from that time

on, my own reading, research, and publications


have had a distinctive visual orientation. Later on,

I spent a semester as a postdoctoral fellow at New

York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, focusing on

Caravaggio, in conjunction with the exhibition The

Age of Caravaggio.

One of the aspects of the writings of our patron,

Saint Francis de Sales, is that they are very

visual and very pictorial. They don’t have visual

illustrations, but vivid word images and descriptions,

verbal descriptions of works of art. This is

something that has intrigued me and that I’ve been

working on. In the process, I’ve been supported

by some colleagues in art history who have been

companions and mentors on the way. Then, of

course, when I went to Saint Joseph’s University,

I was right in the middle of the art thing. The

president at the time, Father Rashford, and I were

in graduate school at Hopkins during the same time

period. He was very interested in building up the art

collection and giving it a distinctive focus. I recall

saying to him, “Well, you’re not going to be buying

Italian Renaissance art because you can’t afford

it. What’s still collectible and affordable? Spanish

Colonial art.” So that’s when we started to develop

Spanish Colonial art as the core of the collection.

It’s great to introduce the students who work with

us as research assistants to art. Many of them do

not have a background in art history, and so if I

take them to an exhibition, or to a museum, they’ll

say, “Father, I don’t know anything about art. I’m a

chemical biology major.” I say to them, “It doesn’t

matter, just tell me what you see.”

VALERIO: That’s where it begins. How about you,

Rick? How did you get involved in art?

ORTWEIN: I was a kid who could draw. I drew

Snoopy all the time. I didn’t have much exposure

outside of cartoons and Norman Rockwell books

until I came to Elkins Park and went to Tyler, and

started that formal training.

VALERIO: Peter?

PAONE: I was avoiding the priesthood. That was

one of my battles, but I’ve been an artist ever since I

can remember.

VALERIO: So, you were also a kid who could draw.

[laughs]

PAONE: Yes, well, I was developing as an artist, and

somewhere along the line, my mother decided I

should be a priest, and, we looked into it for about

three months, and I decided that’s not where it’s

going to be. It can’t be that way. But, there was

enough there, that the imagery has stuck with me.

VALERIO: My mother is a painter, my father is a

writer, and so art history was a natural thing for

me. I would sometimes go with my grandparents

to church on Sunday, but the church itself wasn’t

so much a part of my life, except for baptisms,

weddings, funerals, and so on—which is to say that,

yes, it was a part of my life. [laughs] I didn’t even

realize it, because I enjoy looking at the imagery so

much, but it’s all very familiar to me.

REIMANN: I do think there are very few people

who do not have any religious background. Even

the young children we start at preschool and

kindergartners recognize Adam and Eve. How do

they recognize Adam and Eve? There has to be

some background.

VALERIO: These are stories that shape the way we

understand the world. I’m sure we could find many

Judeo-Christian resonances in popular culture. Well,

anyway, this was wonderful. Thank you all.


JAMES W. (BO) BARTLETT American, born 1955Burden of Evolution, 1992 Graphite on paper, 22 1/2 x 27 1/2 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, Barra Foundation Art Acquisition Fund, 1993

JULIUS BLOCH American, 1888–1966The Green Pastures, date unknown Lithograph, 14 1/8 x 10 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2004

BRIAN BOUTWELL American, born 1960Grid #XXIII, 2008 Oil and charcoal on canvas, 28 x 22 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Bill Scott, 2011

QUITA BRODHEAD American, 1901–2002Crucifix, 1940 Oil on canvas, 36 x 24 inPrivate Collection

MOE BROOKER American, born 1940I Can’t Keep from Singing #2, 2001 Mixed media on paper, 29 7/8 x 29 1/2 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, Barra Foundation Art Acquisition Fund, 2003

MICHAEL CIERVO American, born 1982Untitled (Cross), 2008 Oil and enamel on EPS board, 60 x 60 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Bill Scott, 2011

RALPH PALLEN COLEMAN American, 1892–1968Come Unto Me, date unknown Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 30 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Coleman Estate, 1968

WALTER DODD CONDIT American, 1918–1991Head of Christ, date unknown Woodcut, 8 1/4 x 5 1/4 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Annie Lloyd Condit, 1995

EDITH EMERSON American, 1888–1981Calling of Elisha, 1920 Oil on canvas, 21 3/4 x 78 1/4 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 1958

WALTER ERLEBACHER American, born Germany, 1933–1991Maquette for Jesus Breaking Bread, 1975 Lead alloy and polychromed plaster, 12 1/4 x 16 1/4 x 14 1/4 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist’s wife, Martha Mayer Erlebacher, 2009

Bishop John Neumann Greeting the Citizens of Philadelphia, 1979 Lead alloy, polychromed plaster, and wood, 15 3/4 x 28 1/2 x 7 3/4 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Martha Mayer Erlebacher, 1997

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION

Untitled (Cross), 2008, by Michael Ciervo (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Bill Scott, 2011)


SAM FEINSTEIN American, 1915–2003Untitled (Crucified), mid-to late 1930s Oil on canvasboard, 20 x 24 inWoodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Samuel L. Feinstein Trust, 2011

FRANK GALUSZKA American, born 1947Bethany (Mary and Martha), 1982 Oil on linen, 106 x 80 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Winfield Family, 2013

MARGUERITE GAUDIN American, 1909–1991Easter Morn, date unknown Pen and ink on paper, 15 x 18 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 1965

PAUL GORKA American, born 1931The Lamentation, date unknown Oil on canvas, 39 1/4 x 59 1/4 inWoodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Estate of Doris Gorka Bartuska, 2014

ANTHONY-PETR GORNY American, born 1950A Sudarium, 1994 Silkscreen on fabric, 24 1/2 x 21 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2014

EDWARD FENNO HOFFMAN III American, 1916–1991St. Francis, 1960 Bronze, 30 1/2 x 10 1/3 x 8 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 1966

RAZEL KAPUSTIN American, 1908–1968Locusts (Eighth Plague), 1966 Oil on canvas, 37 1/2 x 49 1/2 inWoodmere Art Museum: Gift of Sheldon and Sylvia Kapustin, 2012

JACOB LANDAU American, 1917–2001Behold, I Will Send You Elijah, 1973 Lithograph, 22 3/8 x 30 3/8 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Rosa Giletti, 2015

Cain and Abel, date unknown Watercolor, 20 1/2 x 15 1/2 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Rosa Giletti, 2015

Abraham, Elijah, Amos, Hosea (studies for The Prophetic Quest window cycle), c. 1973 Charcoal on tracing paper, each 24 x 4 3/4 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 2015

SAM MAITIN American, 1928–2004Search and Create: Jacob Wrestles with Dawn, 1979 Ink, watercolor, and gouache, 15 x 9 3/4 inWoodmere Art Museum: Gift of Ann E. Donald W. McPhail, 2013

DAVIS MELTZER American, born 1930Samson, date unknown Lithograph, 10 1/8 x 12 7/8 in.

Woodmere Art Museum: Gift from the Collection of Harry and Catherine Kuch, 1988

SUSAN MOORE American, born 1953Thy Will Be Done, 2007 Oil and acrylic on canvas, 78 x 50 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2012

VIOLET OAKLEY American, 1874–1961Goliath, 1874 The Virgin Mary, 1903 Charcoal and chalk on paper, 24 1/2 x 19 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 1957

The Three Communions (The Last Supper, Morning After the Resurrection, Banquet in Heaven), 1940s Watercolor on illustration board, 24 1/4 x 43 1/4 in.Promised gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

The Lamentation, date unknown, by Paul Gorka (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Estate of Doris Gorka Bartuska, 2014)


PETER PAONE American, born 1936St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, after Jan Van Eyck, 1991 Etching, 15 3/8 x 19 5/8 inWoodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2015

St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, after Jan Van Eyck, 1991 Etching, printed in relief, 15 3/8 x 19 5/8 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2015

HELEN SIEGL American, born Austria, 1924–2009Adam and Eve, 1968 Woodcut, 12 1/4 x 12 1/4 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 1968

BENTON SPRUANCE American, 1904–1967The Word and Job, 1951 Woodcut, 22 5/8 x 16 1/2 inWoodmere Art Museum: Gift of Ron

Rumford, Peter Maxwell, and Margaret Chew Dolan, 2006

St. Francis—The Piazza, 1953 Color lithograph, 16 x 20 3/4 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 1954

Jacob and the Angel, 1956 Lithograph, 15 x 19 3/4 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Spruance Family, 2013

WALTER STUEMPFIG American, 1914–1970We Want Barabbas, c. 1945 Oil on canvas, 13 x 20 inWoodmere Art Museum: Gift of Lee and Barbara Maimon, 2013

UNKNOWN ARTISTBible Lesson Card, 1882 Printed by American Baptist Publication Society, PhiladelphiaCharles Knox Smith Archives Found as a bookmark in Smith’s Book of Psalms

ANTHONY VISCO American, born 1948The Third Station: Jesus Falls the First Time, 1983 Plaster, 32 1/2 x 20 1/2 x 3 3/8 inWoodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2015

The Fifteenth Station: The Resurrection, 1983 Plaster, 31 1/4 x 20 1/2 x 3 5/8 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2015

St. Rita in Ecstasy, 2000 Plaster, 31 x 22 1/2 x 9 1/4 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the artist, 2015

EDWARD WARWICK American, 1881–1973St. Francis, date unknown Woodcut, 12 x 10 in.Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 1960

We Want Barabbas, c. 1945, by Walter Stuempfig (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Lee and Barbara Maimon, 2013)


Woodmere Art Museum receives state

arts funding support through a grant

from the Pennsylvania Council on the

Arts, a state agency funded by the

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National

Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Support provided in part by

The Philadelphia Cultural Fund.

© 2015 Woodmere Art Museum. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

Photography by Rick Echelmeyer unless otherwise noted. Catalogue designed by Barb Barnett and Emma E. Hitchcock, and edited by Gretchen Dykstra.

Front cover: St. Francis—The Piazza, 1953, by Benton Spruance (Woodmere Art Museum: Museum purchase, 1954)

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Woodmere Welcomes Pope Francis

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