Art and faith: Decades of engagement - 1950s

This is Part 7 in a series of posts which aim to demonstrate the breadth of engagement there has been between the Arts and religion within the modern period and into our contemporary experience. The idea is to provide a brief introduction to the artists and initiatives that were prominent in each decade to enable further research. Inevitably, these lists will be partial as there is much that I don’t know and the lists reflect my interests and biases. As such, the primary, but not exclusive, focus is on artists that have engaged with the Christian tradition.

The introduction and the remainder of the series can be found at: Introduction, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s.

• Evelyn Waugh’s Helena (1950), Giovanni Guareschi’s Little World of Don Camillo (1950), Nikos Kazantzakis’ Captain Michalis (1950) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1955), C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series (1950 – 1956), Julien Green’s Moïra (1950) and The Transgressor (1958), Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair (1951), Jack Clemo’s The Clay Verge (1951), Heinrich Böll’s And where were you, Adam? (1951), And Never Said a Word (1953), The Bread of Those Early Years (1955), and Billiards at Half-past Nine (1959), David Jones’ The Anathemata (1952), Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood (1952), Elisabeth Langgässer’s The Quest (1953), J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1954), R.S. Thomas’ Song at the Year's Turning : Poems, 1942-1954 (1955), Muriel Spark’s The Comforters (1957), Brainard Cheney’s This Is Adam (1958), Geoffrey Hill’s For The Unfallen (1959), Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowtiz (1959), Morris West’s The Devil’s Advocate (1959), and Shūsaku Endō’s Wonderful Fool (1959) are published.
• In 1950, black gospel features at Carnegie Hall when Joe Bostic produces the Negro Gospel and Religious Music Festival. He repeats it the next year with an expanded list of performing artists, and in 1959 moves to Madison Square Garden.
• In 1950, Hank Williams begins recording as "Luke the Drifter" for his religious-themed recordings, many of which are recitations rather than singing. Fearful that disc jockeys and jukebox operators would hesitate to accept these recordings, Williams uses this alias to avoid hurting the marketability of his name. Most of the material is written by Williams himself, in some cases with the help of Fred Rose and his son Wesley. The songs depict Luke the Drifter traveling from place to place, narrating stories of different characters and philosophizing about life.
• In 1950, Francis Poulenc composes his Stabat Mater in memory of the painter Christian Bérard. The work is premiered the following year.
• Between 1950 and 1951, the Holy Trinity mural project at the Episcopal Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Port-au-Prince, Haiti is finished. The project is directed by Selden Rodman and includes work by Philomé Obin, Rigaud Benoit, Castera Bazile, Gabriel Lévèque and Wilson Bigaudalso.
• Nicholas Mosley meets and is influenced by Father Raymond Raynes, superior of the Anglican Community of the Resurrection (1950), and edits the theological magazine Prism from 1958.
• The Chapelle du Saint-Marie du Rosaire in Vence is completed by Henri Matisse in 1951.
• An annual exhibition Salon Art Sacré is founded by Marie-Alain Couturier, Pie-Raymond Régamey and Joseph Pichard in 1951.
• In 1951, in preparation for the unveiling of Christ of St John of the Cross, Salvador Dalí writes his Mystical Manifesto.
• In 1951, 'The Baptism of Christ' by Hans Feibusch is commissioned for Chichester Cathedral.
• The Blake Prize for Religious Art is launched in Australia in 1951.
• In 1952, François Mauriac wins the Nobel Prize "for the deep spiritual insight and the artistic intensity with which he has in his novels penetrated the drama of human life".
• In 1952, the East Window created by Evie Hone for Eton College Chapel is installed.
• In 1952, Albert Gleizes is commissioned to create a fresco on the theme of The Eucharist for a new Jesuit chapel at Les Fontaines, Chantilly.
• In 1952 Cerf publish Pie-Raymond Régamey's Religious Art in the Twentieth Century.
• ‘Modern Sacred Art’ by Joseph Pichard is published by Arthaud editions in 1953.
• Jubilee, a widely acclaimed Catholic literary magazine published between 1953 and 1967, is founded by Ed Rice, and co-edited by Robert Lax and Thomas Merton with the mission to “produce a Catholic literary magazine that would act as a forum for addressing issues confronting the contemporary church.”
• Alfred Noyes gives an account of his conversion in his autobiography, Two Worlds for Memory (1953).
• In 1953 Andre Girard completes his commission, awarded by Clare Boothe Luce, for the decoration of St. Ann Chapel in Palo Alto. Girard develops the technique, which he calls ‘painting on light’, of painting directly on film. These films focus exclusively on religious themes and include the Sermon on the Mount recounted in Matthew’s Gospel, the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, and the life of the Patriarch Abraham. In 1959, Girard’s films are initially presented through national broadcasts and later at congregational viewings.
• In 1953, Francis Poulenc begins writing the opera Dialogues des Carmélites, based on an unfilmed screenplay by Georges Bernanos. The text, based on a short story by Gertrud von Le Fort, depicts the Martyrs of Compiègne, nuns guillotined during the French Revolution for their religious beliefs. The opera is first given in January 1957 at La Scala in Italian translation.
• Completion in 1954 of the Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut by Le Corbusier.
• In 1954, Galerie nächst St. Stephan in Vienna is founded by Monseigneur Otto Mauer. There, he creates a platform for artists like Herbert Boeckl, Wolfgang Hollegha, Josef Mikl, Markus Prachensky, and Arnulf Rainer to exchange ideas about art.
• From 1954 onwards musicians such as James Brown, James Booker, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, and Jackie Wilson help create soul music by bringing gospel inspired harmonies and traditions from rhythm and blues.
• Biblical themes and religious figures inspired Martha Graham: Seraphic Dialogue (1955; Joan of Arc), Embattled Garden (1958; referring to the Garden of Eden), and Legend of Judith (1962) and abstractions such as Diversion of Angels (1948) or Acrobats of God (1960).
• Completion of commissions in 1955 for Sacré Cœur d'Audincourt, with stained glass by Fernand Léger, mosaic and stained glass by Jean Bazaine, and stained glass (crypt) by Jean Le Moal.
• Canticum Sacrum (1955) by Igor Stravinsky is the first piece to contain a movement entirely based on a tone row. Stravinsky then expands his use of dodecaphony in works such as Threni (1958) and A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer (1961), which are based on biblical texts, and The Flood (1962), which mixes brief biblical texts from the Book of Genesis with passages from the York and Chester Mystery Plays.
• In 1955, Joseph Pichard founds the review Art Chrétien.
• In 1955, W.H. Auden completes Horae Canonicae. This sequence of poems is published in The Shield of Achilles (1955).
• In 1956, Édition Labergerie publish the Jerusalem Bible with more than a thousand of Endre Bálint's illustrations.
• In 1956, at the height of Kenya's Mau Mau war of independence, a young African Christian artist by the name of Rekyaelimoo (Elimo) Njau is commissioned to paint scenes from the life of Jesus in a church being built as a memorial to Christians who had died in the conflict.
• Eric Smith wins The Blake Prise in 1956 for The Scourged Christ, in 1958 for The Moment Christ Died and 1959 for Christ Is Risen.
• In April 1956 Colin McCahon becomes Keeper and Deputy Director of the Auckland City Art Gallery. McCahon assists in the professionalisation of the gallery and the first exhibitions and publications to record a New Zealand art history.
• In 1956, Jim and Helen Ede move into Kettle’s Yard and begin keeping ‘open house’. Among the artists with whom they correspond and whose work they collect are William Congdon, David Jones, and Richard Pousette-Dart.
• In 1956 Alec Guinness enters the Roman Catholic church following experiences while filming a film adaptation of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown detective stories in France and the recovery from polio of his son Matthew. As a result, Guinness began to study Catholicism, had long talks with a Catholic priest, went on retreat at a Trappist abbey, and even attended Mass with Grace Kelly while he was working on a film in Los Angeles.
• In 1956 Jean Cocteau finishes his first church murals for the Chapelle Saint-Pierre in Villefranche-Sur-Mer. Murals followed at Notre Dame de France, London, in 1958 and for the church of Saint Blaise-des-Simples in Milly-la-Forêt, 1959.
• The Judson Gallery is instituted by Dr. Howard Moody when he arrives at Judson Memorial Church in 1956. The early work of artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Allan Kaprow, Tom Wesselman and Jim Dine sets the tone for theatre and dance at Judson. Other artists include Robert Rauschenberg, Yoko Ono, and Red Grooms. The gallery is home to several Happenings, presenting the first Happening in New York in 1958 created by Allan Kaprow.
• "Million Dollar Quartet" is a recording of an impromptu jam session involving Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley made on December 4, 1956, at the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. The ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ draw on a shared background of Spirituals, Gospel, the charismata of Southern Pentecostalism.
• In 1957, Caroline Gordon publishes How to Read a Novel.
• In 1957, Daniel Berrigan wins the Lamont Prize for his book of poems, Time Without Number.
• In 1957, Ernesto Cardenal enters Gethsemani Abbey and is a novice there under Thomas Merton until he leaves in 1959 to return to Latin America.
• In 1957, Sister Gertrude Morgan hears a voice telling her she is the Bride of Christ, following this revelation she adopts her sanctified outfit and begins painting and drawing.
• In 1959, Dominique and John de Menil provide funding for a programme in art and art history at the University of St Thomas, a small Catholic liberal arts college in Houston, Texas. They provide resources for an art library, art collection and an exhibitions budget.
• In 1959, the Louvin Brothers release the album ‘Satan is Real’. The review in AllMusic states: "You don't need to share the Louvin Brothers' spiritual beliefs to be moved by the grace, beauty and lack of pretension of this music; Satan Is Real is music crafted by true believers sharing their faith, and its power goes beyond Christian doctrine into something at once deeply personal and truly universal, and the result is the Louvin Brothers' masterpiece."
• In 1959, Frank and Dorothy Getlein publish Christianity in Art.
• A poem and book based on Salvador Dalí’s painting, The Virgin of Port Lligat by Fray Angelico Chavez is selected as one of the best books of 1959 by the Catholic Library Association.
• In 1959, the theologian Paul Tillich gives a lecture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in which he states that “an apple of Cezanne has more presence of ultimate reality than a picture of Jesus by Hoffman.”
• In 1959, Pablo Picasso completes his paintings for the Temple of Peace chapel in Vallauris.
• In 1959, Jean Anouilh’s Becket is performed.
• In 1959, FN Souza paints Crucifixion (now in the Tate).
• In 1959, after a trip to Cambodia, William Congdon returns to Assisi where he is received into the Roman Catholic faith at the Pro Civitate Christiana.

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Million Dollar Quartet - Just A Little Talk With Jesus.