Art and faith: Decades of engagement - 1970s

This is Part 9 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, 1950s, 1960s.

• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1970) and Heinrich Böll (1972) are awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
• Ed Rice’s biography of Thomas Merton, The Man in the Sycamore Tree, is published in 1970.
• In 1970, Corita Kent designs the cover for Daniel Berrigan’s The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, his free-verse play about his trial and conviction for burning draft files with napalm at the Catonsville, Maryland, draft board in 1968. In 1971, she completes her monumental Rainbow Swash gas tank design.
• In 1970 Colin McCahon completes Practical religion: the resurrection of Lazarus showing Mount Martha and celebrates his long but intermittent friendship with James K. Baxter in ‘Walk (Series C)’ also undertaking set designs for a festival of four of Baxter’s plays at Wellington.
• Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell are performed for the first time in 1971.
• The Rothko Chapel in Houston Texas, commissioned by Dominique and John de Menil, is completed in 1971 and dedicated in 1973.
• In 1971, Henk Krijger paints The Annunciation. The Institute of Christian Art moves to Toronto, Canada, and the Patmos Workshop and Gallery in Toronto is opened.
• Between 1971 and 1976, Larry Norman releases his album trilogy of Only Visiting this Plant, So Long Ago the Garden, and In Another Land.
• In March 1972, the retrospective Colin McCahon/a survey exhibition opens at the Auckland City Art Gallery before touring New Zealand. The exhibition of 72 works covering the years 1938–1971 is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue for which McCahon writes the commentary. Critical reaction is positive, with the exhibition hailed as evidence that clearly justifies McCahon’s reputation as New Zealand’s pre-eminent artist.
• In 1972, Béla Kondor paints a monumental oil painting entitled 'Procession of the Saints into Town.'
• In 1972 Arvo Pärt converts from Lutheranism to Orthodox Christianity.
• Sadao Watanabe’s works exhibited in the Modern Print Show at the 1972 Winter Olympics, Sapporo, Japan and holds a one-man show at the Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.
• In 1973, 'The Icon of Divine Light' by Cecil Collins is unveiled at Chichester Cathedral.
• In the winter of 1973/74 Paul Thek is a guest of the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg and his expansive environment Ark, Pyramid – Christmas (The Manger) fills a whole room. It is a development of his installation at documenta 5 in Kassel (1972). Also, in 1972, A Station of the Cross in Essen and, in 1973, Ark, Pyramid-Easter at the Kunstmuseum Luzern.
• In 1976, Dennis Potter’s Brimstone and Treacle is broadcast.
• The Alpha Band forms in July 1976 from the remnants of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue, with T-Bone Burnett, Steven Soles, and David Mansfield joining forces to create some unique, intriguing and utterly wonderful music together for three releases before disbanding. Burnett writes brutally honest and, at time, provocative and satirical lyrics deriving from a Christian worldview.
• In 1977, Tony Harrison’s The Mysteries is performed for the first time at the National Theatre.
• In 1977, Riding Lights Theatre Company is founded in York by Murray Watts, Nigel Forde and Paul Burbridge.
• In 1977, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko becomes artist-in-residence for the St Christopher’s Hospice and in 1980 married Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the modern hospice movement.
• In 1977, the Perceptions of the Spirit in 20th-Century American Art exhibition is held at LACMA.
• The Nevelson Chapel at St Peter’s Lexington Avenue New York is the only remaining, permanent, fully intact sculptural environment by Louise Nevelson. At the Chapel's dedication in 1977, John Dillenberger, historian, theologian and Union Seminary Professor, wrote of her work: ‘This meditation chapel, however, is the only work in which she has had the opportunity to form the total environmental ambience.’ From its dedication, the Chapel of the Good Shepherd has been heralded as a jewel in New York. An “oasis,” as the artist defined it, providing solitude and respite from the harried pace of the city.
• John Tavener is received into the Russian Orthodox Church in 1977.
• Based on interviews with Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz, Alexsander Wat’s My Century is published in 1977. A story of spiritual struggle and conversion - describes the artistic, sexual, and political experimentation --in which Wat was a major participant-- that followed the end of World War I: an explosion of talent and ideas which, he argues, in some ways helped to open the door to the destruction that the Nazis and Bolsheviks soon visited upon the world.
• In 1978, Jackson Hlungwani experiences a vision; Christ and two figures appear to him and make three promises: that he would be healed of his then current injuries, that he would see God and that he would become a preacher. This vision becomes the defining moment of his life, and his career as an artist. Hlungwani develops a visual language that integrates traditions of Tsonga-Shangaan wood carving, Southern African spirituality, popular culture and biblical narratives.
• In 1978, the New Zealand Government marks Australia’s Bicentennial by presenting Colin McCahon’s Victory over Death 2 1970 to ‘the Government and people of Australia’. James Mollison, the Australian National Gallery’s first Director, says that Victory over Death 2 is ‘one of the most important paintings to have been made in the southern hemisphere in recent times.’
• In 1978, a stained glass window by Marc Chagall is unveiled at Chichester Cathedral, based on the theme of Psalm 150 '...let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.'
• In 1979, John F. Deane founds Poetry Ireland – the National Poetry Society – and The Poetry Ireland Review.
• Arts Centre Group (1971), Greenbelt Festival (1974), Asian Christian Art Association (1978) and Christians in the Visual Arts (1979) are founded.
• Bill Fay ‘Time of the Last Persecution’ (1971), Marvin Gaye ‘What’s Going On’ (1971), Aretha Franklin ‘Amazing Grace’ (1972), Al Green ‘The Belle Album’ (1977), The Staple Singers ‘Be What You Are’ (1973), Bruce Cockburn ‘Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaw’ (1979), Bob Dylan ‘Slow Train Coming’ (1979), and Van Morrison ‘Into the Music’ (1979) release Christian-influenced albums.
• John Berryman’s Love & Fame (1970), Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat (1970), The Abbess of Crewe (1974) and The Takeover (1976), Heinrich Böll’s Group Portrait with Lady (1971), Walker Percy’s Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time (1971), Julien Green’s L'Autre (1971), Geoffrey Hill’s Mercian Hymns (1971) and Tenebrae (1978), Peter Levi’s Death is a Pulpit (1971) and Good Friday Sermon (1973), George Mackay Brown’s Greenvoe (1972) and Magnus (1973), Alice Thomas Ellis’ The Sin Eater (1977), and Shusaku Endo’s Volcano (1978) are published.

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Bill Fay - Time Of The Last Persecution.