Haggerty Museum presents The Passion of Christ in Art

(MILWAUKEE) In keeping with the season, the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University announces an exhibition of art featuring Christ’s Passion. The presentation in the John Pick Memorial Gallery includes seven works from the Museum’s permanent collection and opens April 6. The exhibition will include 16th, 17th and 19th Century paintings and sculpture which depict the final hours in the life of Christ.

"The aim of the exhibition is to focus on art depicting the passion of Christ in different media through the centuries," said museum director Dr. Curtis L. Carter. "It is an opportunity to view the events of the passion from different artists’ perspectives."

The centerpiece of the exhibition is Christ on the Cross (72 x 51 in.), a large-scale seventeenth-century Mexican crucifix donated to the museum in 1985 by Mary McCarty in remembrance of her father, Robert T. McCarty, MD. This polychrome sculpture was done in the tradition of realistic three-dimensional portrayals of Christ and the Saints, common in Central and South America. These pieces are typically used in parades through the streets of towns and cities during Holy Week.

The earliest piece in the exhibition, Christ Blessing, is a sixteenth-century Flemish oil on panel painting. In this portrait of Christ, Jesus holds an orb, or symbol of power, in his left hand and is shown offering a blessing with his right hand. This painting was a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Eckhart Grohmann in 1985.

This same gesture is also seen in a large polychrome crucifixion and in the smaller ivory version of Christ on the cross. The ivory reliquary is a carefully modeled rendering of Christ on the cross, flanked by saints, atop an elaborately carved base. The four apostles appear in each of the corners of the base which is inscribed with the date December 26, 1858. This piece was a gift of Abraham D. Braun in 1950.

The most recent acquisition in this exhibition is Frans Francken II, The Crucifixion, ca. 1600-10. The artist, born in Antwerp (1581-1642) came from a family of painters in which he is the most important and still the most widely known. In 1605, he became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke, and served as its deacon in 1616. Francken, who specialized in painting small figures, often collaborated with other artists, including Rubens, Jan Breughel I, and Frans Snyders. This piece was a gift of the David C. Scott Foundation Fund in 2003.

Christ at the Column, an oil on panel by Giovanni Pietro Pedrini was featured in the Haggerty Museum of Art’s Italian Renaissance Masters exhibition in 2001. Pedrini called Giampietrino was active during the first half of the sixteenth-century. The artist presents an idealized solitary Christ prior to his flagellation by his captors. This piece was also a gift of the David C. Scott Foundation Fund in 1996.

The Haggerty Museum of Art’s permanent collection is home to diverse religious art, much of it on display in the museum galleries including The Lamentation of Mary by Juan Correa de Vivar and St. Francis in Penitence by the 17th century Italian artist Francesco Trevisani.