November 1, 2022
Notre Dame Museum Director publishes Book on Sculptures of Jesus Christ
Notre Dame, IN: The Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame is pleased to announce the publication of Christ among Us: Sculptures of Jesus across the History of Art by Director and Curator of Sculpture Joseph Antenucci Becherer, PhD. The book, coauthored with Henry Martin Luttikhuizen, PhD, Professor Emeritus at Calvin University, surveys sculptural representations of Jesus from the Early Christian period to the present day.
No figure has been featured more frequently in Western art than Jesus Christ. Sculptures, particularly—though they have received less notice than paintings—provide some of the most moving representations in their capacity to show Christ alongside us in three-dimensional space. This richly illustrated volume features an in-depth introduction to the topic followed by fifty-two individual essays on both iconic and surprising works from the third century to the twenty-first century.
The coauthors—one from the Roman Catholic tradition and one from the Protestant tradition—have selected works by celebrated masters ranging from Donatello to Michelangelo to Canova, Henry Moore to Mark Wallinger to Jaume Plensa, as well as extraordinary works by numerous unrecorded masters. Sculptures from such leading institutions as the Vatican Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Louvre, are balanced with powerful images of sculptures that remain in situ or are held by smaller institutions across the United States and Europe.
“Joseph Becherer and Henry Luttikhuizen have assembled a brilliant selection of sculpted images of Jesus that will inform and enrich art lovers, students, travelers, and anyone interested in the life of Christ. Accompanied by sensitive readings of the sculptures they have chosen, the selections span eleven countries and encompass nineteen different materials,” writes renowned art historian Judith W. Mann of the Saint Louis Art Museum. “There are many icons of the history of art, along with surprising and eye-opening examples that offer rich understandings of both the sculptor’s accomplishment and meaning of the subject . . .”.
Christ among Us: Sculptures of Jesus across the History of Art is published by Wm. B. Eerdmans. Becherer most recently completed Gravitas: Skulpturen in St. Gereon und der Minoritenkirche St. Mariae Empfängnis zu Köln (Katholischen Pfarrgemeinden, und Galerie Boisseree, Köln 2021), and Luttikhuizen contributed numerous chapters in The History of Art: A Global View (Thames & Hudson, 2021).
MEDIA CONTACT: If you would like high-resolution images or in-depth information, please contact Gina Costa, Communications Program Director at (574) 631-4720 or gcosta@nd.edu.
About The Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame
Considered one of the leading university art museums in America, the Snite Museum's permanent collection contains 30,000 works that represent many cultures and periods of world art history. Exceptional holdings include the Jack and Alfrieda Feddersen Collection of Rembrandt Etchings, the Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin Collection of 19th-Century French Art, the John D. Reilly Collection of Old Master and 19th-Century Drawings, the Janos Scholz Collection of 19th-Century European Photographs, the Mr. and Mrs. Russell G. Ashbaugh Jr. Collection of Meštrović Sculpture and Drawings, the George Rickey Sculpture Archive, and the Virginia A. Marten Collection of 18th-Century Decorative Arts. Other collection strengths include Olmec and Mesoamerican art, 20th-century art, and Native American art.
Sculpture is displayed in the Mary Loretto and Terrence J. Dillon Courtyard and in The Charles B. Hayes Family Sculpture Park.
Snite Museum of Art
The University of Notre Dame
100 Moose Krause Circle
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Phone: (574) 631-5466
Fax: (574) 631-8501
Directions: nd.edu/visitors/directions
Hours:
Tuesday-Friday 10-5,
Thursdays-open until 7:30
Saturdays- Noon-5
Admission is free