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Frederick J. Brown: The Life of Christ Altarpiece
December 2, 1995 to April 19, 1996
In 1992, prolific expressionist artist Frederick J. Brown offered to execute a large, multi-paneled altarpiece based on the life of Christ for the new Museum of Contemporary Religious Art. A generous gift of UMB Banks and the Crosby Kemper Foundations helped make that project a reality.
The resulting Life of Christ Altarpiece, dedicated to artist Max Beckmann, is comprised of a central triptych (depicting the Baptism, Descent From the Cross, and Resurrection of Christ), measuring over 15 feet wide; and two large side panels, depicting the Madonna and Child and the Descent into Hell, placed at 90掳 angles to the triptych. Through strong brushwork and brilliant coloration, Brown has created a moving visual theological reflection on the life of Christ.
Madonna and Child is the hallmark piece of this polyptych. The strong, iconic Madonna with her striking face, embraces the child Jesus, the most naturalistic of the figures in the altarpiece. The child has a gentle, melancholic expression that indicates, even at this early age, an understanding of all that is to come. In Brown鈥檚 unusual and beautiful Baptism of Christ, the River Jordan assumes the epic proportions of a large lake with a quilt-like coastline and sailboats in the background. Jesus floats horizontally on the river in the middle ground, his head supported by the standing John the Baptist. This unusual position of Jesus offers a foreshadowing of his death and entombment.
Descent From the Cross is a very narrow, tall canvas dominated by a cadaverous Christ. The crosses of the two thieves are in the background and immediately behind Christ is a golden halo. Yellow and gold in this altarpiece are signifiers of the Divine Presence. Resurrection collapses the events of Holy Week into one canvas鈥攖he Crucifixion, the Entombment, and the Resurrection. The rolled-away stone, bearing a large cross on it, reveals the cold and bloodied slab of the tomb, now empty, while to the right of the tomb the resurrected Christ in profile looks out of the corner of his eye at us.
The final panel in the altarpiece is Brown鈥檚 reflection on a subject rarely seen in modern Western art鈥攖he Descent into Hell鈥攁nd it is distinguished by Brown鈥檚 return to the style of abstract expressionism that he used in the 1970s, the style which won the attention of the artist Willem de Kooning, who became an important mentor and friend for Brown. This moment in Christ鈥檚 life is more often depicted in the Eastern Churches: just prior to his resurrection, the spirit of Christ descended into Limbo and released the spirits of the important figures of the Old Testament so they could participate in the Resurrection. Christ鈥檚 spirit then rejoined his body for his own Resurrection.
For Brown,Descent into Hell has modern and even personal resonances, for in these descending spirits, there is a deeply felt understanding of what it is to look into the abyss and to be overwhelmed by the various struggles of life. Indeed, the removal of figural elements heightens the sense of vast, even limitless despair. Yet, there is also a sense of triumph over those difficulties, expressed through the spirits that are ascending. It is the culmination of a significant, modern treatment of the life of Christ.
Frederick J. Brown is one of America's finest and most prolific expressionist artists. His paintings draw on many sources: his African-American and Choctaw ancestry, the muisc and lives of jazz musicians, his religious upbringing, the folklore of the South, and the art of the German Expressionists and the American Abstract-Expressionists, especially that of his mentor and friend, Willem de Kooning.
Brown has exhibited widely throughout this country and abroad, and his paintings are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; and the White House, Washington, D.C. In 1988, Mr. Brown had the largest retrospective ever given a Western artist by the People's Republic of China, and he is the only Western artist ever to have had an exhibition at China's national museum in Tien An Men Square.
MOCRA and 老司机福利网 express their deep gratitude to Frederick J. Brown and to UMB Banks and the Crsoby Kemper Foundations for making this important gift of art possible.
above:
Installation view of Frederick J. Brown: The Life of Christ Altarpiece at MOCRA, 1995鈥1996. Photo by Jeffrey Vaughn.
Exhibition |
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Bernard Maisner: The Hourglass and the Spiral |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Erika Diettes: Sudarios |
Regina DeLuise: Vast Bhutan 鈥 Images from the Phenomenal World |
Calligraphic Art of Salma Arastu |
Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part Two, The Second Decade |
Rebecca Niederlander: Axis Mundi |
Jordan Eagles: BLOOD / SPIRIT |
Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part One, The First Decade |
Archie Granot: The Papercut Haggadah |
A Tribute to Frederick J. Brown |
Patrick Graham: Thirty Years 鈥 The Silence Becomes the Painting |
Adrian Kellard: The Learned Art of Compassion |
Good Friday: The Suffering Christ in Contemporary Art |
James Rosen: The Artist and the Capable Observer |
MOCRA at Fifteen: Good Friday |
Michael Byron: Cosmic Tears |
Miao Xiaochun: The Last Judgment in Cyberspace |
MOCRA at Fifteen: Pursuit of the Spirit |
Oskar Fischinger: Movement and Spirit |
The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture |
Arshile Gorky: The Early Years 鈥 Drawings and Paintings, 1927鈥1937 |
Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds |
Junko Chodos: The Breath of Consciousness |
DoDo Jin Ming: Land and Sea |
Rito, Espejo y Ojo / Ritual, Mirror and Eye: Photography by Luis Gonz谩lez-Palma, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Pablo Soria |
Radiant Forms in Contemporary Sacred Architecture: Richard Meier and Steven Holl |
Daniel Ramirez: Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus, an Homage to Oliver Messiaen |
Avoda: Objects of the Spirit 鈥 Ceremonial Art by Tobi Kahn |
Tony Hooker: The Greater Good 鈥 An Artist's Contemporary View of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study |
Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds, an encore presentation |
Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds: A Fortieth Anniversary Celebration |
Lewis deSoto: Paranirvana |
Robert Farber: A Retrospective, 1985鈥1995 |
Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium |
Tobi Kahn: Metamorphoses |
MOCRA: The First Five Years |
Steven Heilmer: Pietre Sante | Holy Stones |
Utopia Body Paint Collection and Australian Aboriginal Art from St. Louis Collections |
Manfred Stumpf: Enter Jerusalem |
Frederick J. Brown: The Life of Christ Altarpiece |
Edward Boccia: Eye of the Painter |
Consecrations Revisited |
Keith Haring: Altarpiece 鈥 The Life of Christ |
Ian Friend: The Edge of Belief 鈥 paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, 1980鈥1994 |
Eleanor Dickinson: A Retrospective |
Post-Minimalism and the Spiritual: Four Chicago Artists |
Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS |
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part One |
Body and Soul: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater |
Transformations: Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Visible Conservation |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection: The Romero Cross |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part Two 鈥 Three Major Installations |
Beyond Words: Three Contemporary Artists and the Manuscript Tradition |
MOCRA: 25 |
Gary Logan: Elements |
Gratitude |
Surface to Source |
Quiet Isn't Always Peace |
Tom Kiefer: Pertenencias / Belongings |
Double Vision: Art from Jesuit University Collections |
Lesley Dill: Dream World of the Forest |
Jordan Eagles: VIRAL\VALUE |
This Road Is the Heart Opening: Selections from the MOCRA Collection |
Vicente Telles and Brandon Maldonado: Cuentos Nuevomexicanos |
Open Hands: Crafting the Spiritual |
Selections from the MOCRA Collection |