Art and faith: Decades of engagement - 1960s

This is Part 8 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.

• In 1960, Sainte Marie de La Tourette at Eveux-sur-l'Arbresle by Le Corbusier is completed.
• In 1960, William Kurelek has his first exhibition at the Isaacs Gallery in Toronto. It is an immediate success. In 1963, Kurelek paints Dinner Time on the Prairies.
• Around 1960, art dealer Larry Borenstein meets Sister Gertrude Morgan while she is preaching in the French Quarter of New Orleans. He invites her to perform and exhibit work in his art gallery.
• Revelations is the signature work of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which premiers an extended version of the work in 1960, when Alvin Ailey is 29. Set to spirituals, gospel, and blues music and influenced by the choreographer's own Christian upbringing, it presents a vision of the historical African American experience from a church-inspired perspective.
• Igor Stravinsky composes A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer (1961), which is 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.
• Francis Poulenc’s Gloria is premiered on January 21, 1961 in Boston, Massachusetts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Chorus Pro Musica under conductor Charles Münch with Adele Addison as soloist. In 1962, he completes Sept répons des ténèbres (Seven responsories for Tenebrae, 1961–62) and writes, "I have finished Les Ténèbres. I think it is beautiful. With the Gloria and the Stabat Mater, I think I have three good religious works. May they spare me a few days in Purgatory, if I narrowly avoid going to hell."
• The Society for the Arts, Religion, and Contemporary Culture is founded in October 1961 by Alfred Barr, art critic and founder of the Museum of Modern Art, theologian Paul Tillich, and Marvin Halverson, an American Protestant theologian and author of a 1951 booklet, Great Religious Paintings. Among the more than 300 Fellows of the Society have been Mircea Eliade, Denise Levertov, Sallie McFague, Cleanth Brooks, Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, and John Updike.
• In the early 1960s, Greenwich Village poet Robert Nichols asks Al Carmines if Judson Church can host productions of experimental theatre pieces, including his own short plays. Judson Church becomes a venue from which "Off Off Broadway" develops. The productions are done on a shoestring and admission is by contribution, with most plays presented in the church's balcony space. The first play is Joel Oppenheimer's 'The Great American Desert' in November 1961.
• In 1961, Graham Sutherland paints an altarpiece Noli Me Tangere for the Chapel of St Mary Magdalen in Chichester Cathedral. Kenneth Clark speaks at the unveiling. Leonard Bernstein composes the 'Chichester Psalms' in 1965. John Piper designs a Tapestry for the screen behind the High Altar which is installed in 1966.
• In 1961, after many years of deliberation, George Mackay Brown is received into the Roman Catholic Church.
• In 1961, Elizabeth Jennings’ Every Changing Shape considers, from a Christian poet's perspective, how religious or mystical experience informs the imagination. Christianity and Poetry (1965) considers the influence of religion on literature.
• Nicholas Mosley writes ‘The Life of Raymond Raynes’ (1961) and ‘Experience and Religion: A Lay Essay in Theology’ (1965).
• St Vincent ArchAbbey Library’s ceramic tile mural, measuring 22 feet by 11 feet, is designed, glazed and fired by Roman Verostko, while a monk at St Vincent. The mural is installed in 1961 and dedicated in 1962. In 1966 he begins experimenting with electronics and creates ‘The Psalms in Sound and Image’ consisting of four 15 minute units with collage photos, drawings and brief texts flashed in sequences on two screens and timed with original soundtracks. These audio visual psalms are created as 20th Century songs of praise and wonder of the experience of life. Verostko becomes a pioneer of algorithmic art.
• In 1962, the new Coventry Cathedral by architect Basil Spence is consecrated, with artworks by Ralph Beyer, Elizabeth Frink, Hans Coper, John Hutton, John Piper and Graham Sutherland, among others.
• In 1962, The Crucifixion by Geoffrey Clarke is unveiled during the dedication ceremony for the chapel of the Bishop Otter College. It is later followed by Jean Lurçat's Aubusson Creation tapestry.
• In 1962, F.N. Souza paints The Crucifixion (now in the Methodist Modern Art Collection).
• Eric Smith wins the 1962 Helena Rubinstein Scholarship with paintings which are a return to the structural concentration of his 1955 religious paintings.
• In 1962, Sadao Watanabe holds a one-man show at the Portland Art Museum.
• In 1962, Sister Corita Kent, as a teacher in the art department at Immaculate Heart College, introduces her students to the Los Angeles debut of Andy Warhol’s pop art Campbell’s soup cans. Asked to create a mural for the Vatican Pavilion at the 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair, Kent produces a 40-foot-long banner updating the Beatitudes, the blessings pronounced by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, with quotes from Pope John XXIII and John F. Kennedy. Kent’s screenprint "Powerup" (1965) melds a sermon on spiritual fulfillment by an activist priest, Daniel Berrigan, with the advertising catch-phrase of the Richfield Oil Corporation. Also in 1965, IBM ask Kent to design the Christmas window display for its Madison Avenue showroom. Kent and students from her lettering and design course at IHC create a display of 725 cardboard grocery boxes adorned with quotations, silkscreens, and photographs focused around the theme of “Peace on Earth.” Kent appears on the cover of Newsweek in 1967.
• Jean Cocteau dies in 1963. At the time of his death, he is preparing to decorate the chapel at Fréjus. He left so many designs and drawings for this work, that his adopted son Edouard Dermit was able to carry out the work in 1964.
• In 1963, David Alfaro Siqueiros paints Cristo del Pueblo and Mutilated Christ.
• In 1963, Doctor Cicely Saunders buys Marian Bohusz-Szyszko’s Christ Calming the Waters for the St Christopher’s Hospice Sydenham.
• Peter Schumann co-founds the Bread and Puppet Theater in 1963 in New York City. The theater is named for its combination of puppetry shows with free freshly baked bread. Among the notable Bread and Puppet Theater shows directed by Schumann are "Nativity 1992" and "The Divine Reality Comedy".
• In August 1964 Colin McCahon resigns from the Auckland City Art Gallery to take up a position as a lecturer in painting at the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts. He teaches there for six years, influencing a generation of artists.
• In 1964, Béla Kondor paints Iron-sheet Corpus. In 1968 his panel painting depicting the legend of Saint Margaret is placed in Margaret Island, Budapest.
• In 1964, Thomas Merton's Message to Poets is read at a meeting of the “new” Latin-American poets – and a few young North Americans – in Mexico City.
• Jazz Vespers starts in 1964 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in New York. Revd John Garcia Gensel realises that most musicians can’t make a Sunday morning service given that they only get home around 4/5am. The Jazz Vespers service is introduced at 5.00 pm each Sunday.
• Elimo Njau champions the arts of East Africa by founding the Paa-Ya-Paa (‘The Antelope Rises’) Gallery in Nairobi in 1965. As the first African-owned art centre in East Africa, Paa-Ya-Paa becomes a key forum for local artists and intellectuals, hosting exhibitions, workshops and debates.
• Founded by the Church of Sweden Mission, Rorke's Drift Art and Craft Centre starts producing weaving in 1965. Rorke’s Drift becomes a centre for arts and crafts, including fine art, printmaking, pottery and weaving, located in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It has been described as "the most famous indigenous art centre in South Africa". The Centre produces some of southern Africa's most renowned artists and printmakers, including Azaria Mbatha, John Muafangejo, Dan Rakgoathe, and Bongiwe Dhlomo.
• In 1965, the Staple Singers premiere ‘Freedom Highway’, for a live recording at the New Nazareth Church on Chicago’s South Side, a few weeks after the beginning of the Selma to Montgomery marches in the US.
• In the second half of 1965 Colin McCahon begins work on what was to be his largest public commission – the design and painting of clerestory windows in a new convent chapel being built for the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, in Upland Rd, Auckland. It is a project that will prove critical in determining the course of his future career, stimulating a renewed interest in religious subjects and their symbolism. In the windows McCahon uses traditional Christian (Catholic) symbols, both pictorial (the Cross, the dove, a crown of thorns, wheat and the chalice) and textual (IHS, XP), as well as newer symbols of his own devising.
• In 1965, Patrick Pye completes commissions for Glenstal Abbey, Co. Limerick; Church of the Resurrection, Belfast; Convent of Mercy, and Cookstown, Co. Tyrone.
• Duke Ellington’s first two Sacred Concerts (1965 and 1968), John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (1965) and Albert Ayler’s Spiritual Unity (1965), Spirit’s Rejoice (1965) and Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe (1969).
• Olivier Messiaen's La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ occupies him from 1965 to 1969 and the musicians employed include a 100-voice ten-part choir, seven solo instruments and large orchestra. Its fourteen movements are a meditation on the story of Christ's Transfiguration.
• George Seferis’s final collection, Three Secret Poems (1966), is his most mystical work, imbued with his experience of reading and living with the Revelation of St John the Divine.
• Recording since 1966, first as a lead singer for the group People! and then as a solo artist, Larry Norman becomes a pioneer of Christian rock music. In 1969, Capitol Records release Norman's first solo album, Upon This Rock.
• Barnett Newman’s The Stations of the Cross: Lema Sabachtani (1958-1966) is exhibited for the first time in 1966 at the Guggenheim Museum.
• In 1967, “An Evening with God” takes place at the Boston Tea Party, a rock music club, and features performances, music, conversation, and an informal communion meal of store-bought bread and wine. The event is planned by Corita Kent, the priest Daniel Berrigan, the musician Judy Collins, and the Harvard professor Harvey Cox.
• John Coltrane’s funeral is held on 21 July 1967 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church on Lexington Avenue and 54th street in Manhattan. The service features readings, including Coltrane’s friend, the trumpeter Calvin Massey, reciting the former’s poem “A Love Supreme”, and musical performances by Coltrane’s saxophonist-peers Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman.
• Arvo Pärt’s first overtly sacred piece, Credo (1968), is a turning point in his career and life; on a personal level he reaches a creative crisis that leads him to renounce the techniques and means of expression used so far; on a social level the religious nature of this piece results in his being unofficially censured and his music disappearing from concert halls.
• Dylan’s Gospel by The Brothers and Sisters, a choir of Los Angeles session singers including Merry Clayton and Gloria Jones, is released in 1969 on Ode Records. This rare and sought-after album finds the California collective covering a clutch of Dylan classics in the era’s revolutionary gospel style.
• In 1969 Henk Krijger moves to Chicago to become Master Artist for the Institute for Christian Art (ICA) — later Patmos Workshop and Gallery (Toronto, Ontario, Canada).
• Christopher Fry’s Curtmantle is performed (1962). Dennis Potter’s Son of Man is broadcast (1969).
• Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away (1960), Julien Green’s Chaque homme dans sa nuit (1960), David Lodge’s The Picturegoers (1960) and The British Museum is Falling Down (1965), Muriel Spark’s The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) and The Mandelbaum Gate (1965), Anthony Burgess’ The Wanting Seed (1962), J.F. Powers’ Morte D’Urban (1962), Morris West’s The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963), Heinrich Böll’s The Clown (1963), Caroline Gordon’s Old Red and Other Stories (1963), Jean Sulivan’s The Sea Remains (1964), Anticipate Every Goodbye (1966), Eternity, My Beloved (1966) and Death’s Consolations (1968), Shusaku Endo’s Silence (1966), Elizabeth Jennings’ The Mind Has Mountains (1966), Michel de Saint Pierre’s The New Priests (1966), Geoffrey Hill’s King Log (1968), Brainard Cheney’s Devil's Elbow (1969), and Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede (1969) are published.

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Arvo Pärt - Credo

Australia at the RA

With 200 works by 146 artists, Australia is the most comprehensive survey of Australian art to have been mounted outside of Australia itself. The story told is one of cultural interaction between Australia’s indigenous peoples and its non-indigenous settlers. Sitting alongside this cultural story is the art historical story of the introduction and dominance of Modernism within Australian art.

The art of Australia’s indigenous peoples possesses an integrity and harmony with life and land which is initially absent from the figurative landscape-based art of the early white settlers. Aboriginal art is both made from the land and about the land. Shapes and symbols of the land are mapped on rocks, ground, bark, bodies and, in more recent years, canvas to enact and embody creation narratives and the balance which exists between the spiritual, natural and moral elements of the world.

While the indigenous peoples of Australia lived in the land and the land lived in them, the early white settlers brought with them an observational approach to landscape. Beginning with views of settlements and gradually expanding to depict the wilderness around them, the early settler artists established landscape as the dominant feature of Australian art. The variation and expanse of Australia’s land mass has provided endless opportunities to celebrate its terrain, vegetation, light and human settlements.

Within this has been a conflicted relationship with its indigenous peoples beginning with observational paintings of aboriginal settlements and rituals, through heroic dramatisations of settler activity which excluded on canvas, as in life, the indigenous peoples, and two-way influences (vis-à-vis Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira mastering European styles while Margaret Preston, a supporter of Namatjira, adopted the palette, flat planes and aspects of mark marking of indigenous art), to contemporary commentaries on race relations which are intentionally provocative.

Modern art began in Australia with the plein-air Impressionism of Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Arthur Streeton and Charles Condor, among others. The work they produced adapted Impressionism to the particular light and terrain of Australia and artists began to talk of a specifically Australian tradition. The early Modernists emphasised colour and composition in cityscapes, with the newly constructed Sydney Harbour Bridge a particular focus, but the greatest period of Australian art to date featured the Expressionism of Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan and Albert Tucker. In their works, land, emotion and symbol coalesced by means of Modernism which, nevertheless, had parallels with Australia’s indigenous artists. In them, the land was speaking powerfully, albeit with strangeness and stress, once again.

Within both the cultural and art historical stories told within this exhibition are hints of another spirituality, the Christianity brought to Australia by the settlers. While the key catalyst for the recognition by the art world of Australia’s indigenous art is identified as being the work of Geoffrey Bardon, an art teacher at the local school in Papunya during the 1970s, Christian missions in Eastern Arnhem Land and Hermannsburg in the 1930s led to monumental panels of ancestors by Yolngu artists placed beside the altar of the local mission church together with the launch of the successful career of Albert Namatjira.
Roy de Maistre wrote that colour "constitutes … the spiritual speech of every living thing." Margaret Preston used The Expulsion to protest at the exclusion of Aborigines from their natural lands. Arthur Boyd set the casting out of the money changers from the Temple in Bendigo and Port Melbourne in his protest at materialism and greed. G.W. Bot’s Garden of Gethsemene, with its three slashes representing three crosses, was a response to the death of her daughter in 1999. These examples from the exhibition are symptomatic of a deeper, broader pool of Christian imagery and spirituality within Australian art which is not plumbed by this exhibition but includes work by Justin O’Brien, Leonard French, Eric Smith and Idris Murphy, among others, much of which has been stimulated by the Blake Prize for Religious Art. When explored alongside the spirituality of Aboriginal art, searching for meaning through this strand of Australian art and creativity can, as Sr. Rosemary Crumlin (author of Aboriginal Art and Spirituality and Images of Religion in Australian Art) has said, lead to the finding of deeper ways into our questions about life and meaning.

Similarly, as the RA’s own guide states, this exhibition "reflects the vastness of the land and the diversity of its people, exploring the implications of these realities - and mythologies - for national identity."

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Midnight Oil - One Country.

Rituals of Life

More than 300 aboriginal artefacts – collected by missionaries for an exhibition commissioned by Pope Pius XI in 1925 – have been properly curated for the first time and can be seen in the Vatican Museums, an event project leader Professor Margo Neale described enthusiastically as “a miracle”.

These treasures are now on public display, thanks in part to Missionary Ethnological Museum curator Father Nicola Mapelli. Last summer, Mapelli flew to Australia and visited Aboriginal communities to request permission to display the collection. His objective was to "reconnect with a living culture, not to create a museum of dead objects." His goal is accomplished in the exhibition, Rituals of Life which is focused on northern and Western Australian art from the turn of the 20th century.

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Midnight Oil - Earth And Sun And Moon.

Airbrushed from Art History (21)

Daniel Johnson Fleming wrote that his book Each with His Own Brush: Contemporary Christian Art in Asia and Africa (Friendship Press New York, 1938) was "the first attempt … to bring together pictures of Christian paintings from various lands." He wrote:

"Now that Christianity has become ecumenical (or, in the literal sense of this word, has gained a foothold in all parts of the inhabited earth), one expectantly surveys the younger Christian communities of the world to see what use the church has made of form and color in the expression of her life and faith. This expansion of Christianity into the non-Christian world opens up a new significant period, not only in the expression of the spirit but also in art."

Fr. Sergio Ticozzi, PIME, wrote in Tripod in 2008 that "the new schools of Christian painting in China, Japan, Korea, Indochina, Indonesia and India … succeeded in translating with the brush all the poetry of their art, so spiritual, and celebratory of the Christian mysteries. Theirs is an art perfectly Christian and deeply indigenous!" Similarly, Fr. Joseph Schad, SJ, has written that: "The history of the Society of Jesus is marked with examples of Jesuits encouraging indigenous artists to take Christian imagery and make it their own. In India, the Philippines, Japan, Mexico, and Paraguay, this process found beautiful and powerful expression in religious art."

Archbishop Celso Costantini (1876-1958, later a Cardinal), who was the Apostolic Delegate to China beginning in 1922, was one of those who sought to inculturate the Christian faith in indigenous cultures. His own artistic talent and expertise in the fields of sculpture and architecture greatly contributed to his efforts. He wrote in 1940:

"One day, in 1929, I went to visit in Peiping the personal exhibition of the painter Chen Yuandu. I noticed that this young artist showed a special mastery of his craft, good talent, together with a very solid background in the national style of painting. What I enjoyed most was the spirit and poetry that his paintings expressed. It could be said that he turned lines into scale and the colors into music. I invited him to come to the Delegation's quarters, and I talked to him about the Virgin Mary and the Bible. I showed him several pictures of the early Italian painters and handed him religious works of art for study. After a few days, he painted a picture of the Virgin Mary adoring the Child Jesus, and showed it to me. This beautiful picture in the Chinese style, which has been published in almost all the missionary magazines, became the first symbol of the new Chinese Catholic painting. At Pentecost in 1932, Mr. Chen received baptism and joined the Catholic Church, taking the name of Luke."

Fr. Ticozzi continued the story: "Luke Chen Yuandu (Chen Xu, 1902/03-1967) was later invited to teach in the Art Department of Furen [Fu Jen] Catholic University in Beijing. He formed a group of Catholic artists. Their work has enjoyed considerable success, both in Beijing and in the West. Among his students were Lu Hong Nian, Wang Su Da, Zeng San, Xu Qi Hua, Monica Liu, and other artists. The Art Department of Furen Catholic University produced more than 180 works of Christian art. From 1935 to 1938, the Art Department organized three exhibitions each year for consecutive years. In 1938, at the instigation of Mgr. Costantini, it also organized and conducted a series of itinerary exhibitions in Budapest, Vienna and the Vatican (Rome)."

Fr. Schad wrote about the mission work among the Aborigine peoples undertaken through the Kutjungka Catholic Church at Wirramanu in the Balgo Hills, Australia:

"The bright, acrylic paintings of Balgo are much like stained-glass windows that tell bible stories through brightly colored pieces of glass. The … placement of these articles and figures, the colors, and Aboriginal design elements give an extraordinary character to these works ...

In the works of certain artists, such as Matthew Gill, this integration and interplay of Aboriginal and Christian imagery occurs … successfully and beautifully. Using the earthy reds, yellow ochres, and black and white of traditional cave drawings, Matthew Gill produces striking images of biblical narrative, such as the parable of the Prodigal Son and Pentecost. His paintings have been exhibited in Australia and abroad, but some of his most important initial works hang in the church in Balgo ...

Gracie Mosquito, another artist who lives and works in Wirramanu, is an active member of the parish. Her earlier works, some created in collaboration with other artists, portray similar Christian themes. One of her banners depicts the Holy Spirit as a beautiful bird rendered in pastels, reminiscent of Native American design. There are streams of tear-like drops seemingly emitting from the body of the creature. When asked about the meaning of these stylized droplets, she said that they were blessings flowing from God that envelop the Spirit and are simultaneously "sent out" from the Holy Ghost to all Christians ...

Linda Syddick … lives in a community just outside Alice Springs, more than 500 miles east of Wirramanu. Her works masterfully incorporate a classic dot design in untraditional color combinations. A catalogue describes one of Linda's more explicitly Christian works as a depiction of "the spirits of Aborigines in heaven praying for Aboriginal people on earth." This same overtly religious aspect of Linda's work is also apparent in some of her other paintings, most notably a representation of the Ascension, in which Christ, poised for flight, is brilliantly clothed in yellow ochre robes punctuated with golden crosses, all pointing toward heaven."

The ELC Art and Craft Centre at Rorke’s Drift, Natal, was established in 1962 and had a significant impact on the development of South African art and craft in the 1960s and 1970s. This influence continued in the 1980s, through the graduated students who have filtered into many areas of South African cultural life. Graduates of the ELC Fine Art Course have gone on to work as administrators and educators at virtually all of the existing art centres in the country.

The Art and Craft Centre was established in 1962 by Swedish artists Ulla and Peder Gowenius, who were employed by the Church of Swedish Mission. A Fine Art School was included in the activities and during its 20 years of existence many students from all over of Southern Africa have attended of which many have won national and international acclaim. Rorke's Drift has been the home of worlds famous artists like John Muafangejo, Azaria Mbatha, Bongi Dlomo, Pat Mautla and others and today there are such recognised artists and crafters like the weavers Philda Majozi, Emma Dammann, in the ceramic studio like Gordon Mbatha, Joel Sibisi, Elizabeth Mbatha.

Such initiatives led over time to the formation of Christian Art Associations such as the Asian Christian Art
Association (ACAA) which was founded in 1978 to encourage the visual arts in Asian churches:

"At that first consultation of artists in Bali, the aims of the Association were clearly stated, as follows:

" To encourage artists to express Christian concern through their art in an Asian context.
" To coordinate the activities of individuals and groups in the Asian region who are working on indigenous
art forms.
" To provide a means of communication and information.
" To work with churches, with the Christian Conferences of Asia and with other bodies seeking to witness to Christian faith in Asia.

This association was the result of many conversations between artists and theologians in Asia. Theologians who appreciate the creative mind of the artists as expressed in their works have also inspired and helped artists in their theological reflections which are manifest in their paintings, sculptures and dances. The Christian Conference of Asia has played a significant role in facilitating the birth of this very important ecumenical association of artists in Asia, which has enriched the ecumenical movement globally.

In the last twenty years, many exhibitions have been held not only in Asian countries, but also in Europe,
North America and Australia. Members have been assisted to exhibit their works nationally and internationally." (WEA Connections, September 2010)

Several books, such as Christian Art in Asia, Bible through Asian Eyes, and Christ for All People: Celebrating a World of Christian Art, have been produced by those, such as Masao Takenaka and Ron O’Grady, who have been involved in ACAA and which testify to the mission and talent of numerous artists worldwide.

Three significant artists with links to ACAA include He Qi, Jyoti Sahi and Sadao Watanabe:

• "He Qi was a professor at the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary and a tutor for master candidate students in the Philosophy Department of Nanjing University. He is also a member of the China Art Association and a council member of the ACAA. He has been committed to the artistic creation of modern Chinese Christian Art since 1983. He hopes to help change the "foreign image" of Christianity in China by using artistic language, and at the same time, to supplement Chinese Art the way Buddhist art did in ancient times. In his works, He Qi has blended together Chinese folk customs and traditional Chinese painting techniques with the western art of the Middle and Modern Ages, and has created an artistic style of colour-on-paper painting."
• "Jyoti Sahi was born in 1944 in Pune and studied art for four years in London, at the Camberwell school of Arts and Crafts. On returning to India, he taught art at the American International School in Delhi, and the Blue Mountains School in Ooty, South India. In 1967 Jyoti joined Dom Bede Griffiths, and Laurie Baker at Kurisumala Ashram in Kerala, where there was the idea to create a community of people interested in relating Indian Christian life to the cultural traditions of India. Jyoti set up the Indian School of Art for Peace (INSCAPE) in 1983, with the idea of relating art to Indian spirituality. Jyoti has been running art workshops, and art retreats for groups who want to relate art practices and spiritual insights in the Indian context. Groups of students as well as pilgrims to Indian Ashrams have spent time at the Art Ashram exploring the creative dimensions of their life, using extended art practices as a means to self discovery."
• "Born in Tokyo in 1913, Sadao Watanabe began by specializing in the art of "Katazome" (stencil printing). He studied under Soetsu Yanagi and Keisuke Serizawa. In 1947 he won the first prize from the Japan Folk Art Museum; and the Kokugokai Prize in 1948. A one-man show was held at the Portland Art Museum in 1962 and his works were exhibited in the Modern Print Show at the 1972 Winter Olympics, Sapporo, Japan. Taught printmaking in Oregon and Minnesota and in 1976 visit America again at the invitation of the Lutheran Church. One man show at the Grace Cathedral, San Francisco in 1977. In 1981, received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Linfield College, Oregon. Watanabe's works are in numerous collections including the New York Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Vatican Museum of Modern Religious Art."

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Jide Chord - Romeo and Juliet.