__________________BRING ME THE HEAD OF JESUS CHRIST________________
I have a story to tell. If there is a moral to this story - well - it's for you to figure out.
Here goes ...
Toward the end of my so-called Art Career, I had devolved from a Beverly Hills art consultant slinging etchings, lithographs and paintings to movie stars in California ... all the way down to a local mom and pop art gallery and frame shop in Fort Worth, Texas.
I was now a custom-framer providing advice for graduation photos, paintings of jackrabbits, velvet Elvis renderings, and even folded flags belonging to grieving mothers.
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Friday 1986
The ting-a-ling bell attached to the front door brought me out from the workshop in back.
A man standing in front of me appeared worried; very worried.
He said his name was Steve and was - he professed - "desperate."
On the counter between us he'd laid out a very old portfolio of sketches, charcoal drawings, and preliminary studies.
"These belonged to my grandfather", he began to explain.
"My grand dad painted the most famous painting in the world."
He said it with utmost sincerity and immediately I tensed up.
It was an "Oh no, I don't need this" kind of pull-back feeling.
I took a deep breath and forced a weak smile. In my mind I was trying to figure the fastest way to end the conversation.
Why?
My experiences in life with people who owned paintings was a comedy of delusional over-estimation as to value.
Why did I always have to be the bearer of the bad news? They never believe it and immediately a "shoot the messenger" attitude erupts.
This time - why would anything be any different?
I shrugged. "Tell me all about it."
Thus began a remarkable story - an unbelievable tale which, as it turned out, happened to be completely true.
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The man, Steve, was Stephen Sallman.
Steve's grandfather was named Warner, Warner Sallman. Son of Swedish immigrants and graduate of Chicago's famed Art Institute.
Okaaaay. (I'm really thinking - So what?)
He reached down and flipped over the cover sheet on a charcoal sketch.
The image of Head of Christ.
I instantly recognized it from --well--my whole frickin' life!
As very small boy, I saw this portrait of Jesus EVERYWHERE!
It was hanging on the wall at home, for instance.
My great-grandmother had several of Sallman's Jesus images on her walls as well.
It never occurred to me a person - an artist - had created the portrait. It was ...was...it JUST WAS.
It was a fact of life. THIS is what Jesus looked like.
At least - I thought this when I was a child. As an adult -- I certainly knew better!
But - an emotion was stirred..
I had seen Sallman's paintings reproduced inside THE HOLY BIBLE, on clocks, lunch boxes - like I said: EVERYWHERE.
Steve's grandfather had passed away a couple of decades previously (1968) and his only mission was to find a church, a gallery, a museum who would curate and preserve these remaining documentation of the genesis of Head of Christ (and other famous images) which had been reproduced over HALF A BILLION TIMES!
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What was the problem which made Steve so 'desperate'?
Ready for this? NOBODY HAD THE LEAST INTEREST!
("That's nice - now go away.")
This stunned me. Steve was beaten down by the negativity and downright scorn he'd encountered. Yet, undaunted.
Fortunately, the man I worked with was a devout Catholic ex-Major in the Army who never took "NO" for an answer. He owned the Gallery and he was over-the-moon in his enthusiasm for helping Steve Sallman.
Frances Woods could do it "Even if it hare-lips the Governor." Said he.
Woods and Steve Sallman devoted well over a year going from pillar to post fulfilling the mission to find a home for Warner Sallman's legacy.
The result?
"Since May of 1987, Anderson University and Warner Press have jointly shared ownership of more than 140 works by Warner Sallman, with Warner Press holding the copyright and distribution rights, while Anderson University possesses the actual paintings and drawings. "
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But wait!
Why am I telling you this story?
Neither you nor anybody else we know has any feelings attached to a painting of Jesus!
Not anymore.
We now live in a completely different world mostly uninterested in such things.
I'm an Ex-Jehovah's Witness, for crying out loud.
We had our own illustrations of a manly-man Christ Jesus.
No, the reason I'm telling you this story is simple. And very personal.
Ready or not - here it comes.
As a child - an innocent - Warner Sallman's illustration actually reached my heart. I was opened to the IDEA of being grateful that such a person was willing to give his life to rescue anybody and everybody who wanted to accept his offer and willing to listen.
The word "Salvation" was something real when I was growing up. It was on the lips of everyday people without embarrassment.
NAIVE? GULLIBLE? STUPID?
No, I don't think so.
This how young boys and girls were brought up in the Bible Belt in the South and even in Fort Worth "Where the West Begins."
Cynicism and doubt?
For me, that came later -- later when I was indoctrinated by a completely different idea of - not Jesus Christ - but Christ Jesus. (Jehovah's Witnesses have everything backwards.)
The JW version of Jesus - who was he? He was really the Archangel Michael.
Soon to return with a sword of destruction slaying billions of non-Jehovah's Witnesses at ARMAGEDDON. The Jehovah's Witness Jesus didn't die for all mankind. No no no. He only died for a tiny group who run the Watchtower Organization. The rest of us can... maybe...(if we follow the Governing Body's every word) manage Salvation through them.
(Bumper sticker : "Jesus is coming - and boy is he pissed!"
Yeah -Warner Sallman's Christ would not fit that image at all!
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More to the point - in that gallery that day way back in 1986 - already I was 39 years old and deeply cynical.
Not an atheist so much as angry at religious indoctrination and more than bitter I had squandered my youth parroting
propaganda from door to door with "Jesus" attached like the tag on an old mattress - the WARNING not to remove upon penalty of law!
Gazing at the sketches with a peculiar emotion inside of me - I questioned the grandson about what sort of person his grandfather had been.
(Biography)
Born in 1892, Sallman was a devout member of the Swedish Evangelical Mission. He met his wife singing in church.
He attended the Chicago School of Art Institute.
Working for most of his life out of his bungalow, he never showed his art in a gallery setting. Nobody wanted it.
In desperation he turned to commercial art to earn a living.
He was a prolific illustrator for advertising agencies and publishers, creating images for magazines and ads.
Working from sketches (the ones in front of me on the counter), in 1940 Warner Sallman woke up from a dream he'd had one night and painted his first of five Jesus illustrations.
He donated one to a hospital The Master Healer.
"Sallman produced a number of images which have become virtually archetypal for such groups as Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Church of God, and the Evangelical Covenant Church, his own church body."
WIKIPEDIA:
Head of Christ was reproduced more than 500 million times, appearing on church bulletins, calendars, posters, bookmarks, prayer cards, tracts, buttons, stickers and stationery. Tens of thousands of wallet-size copies were distributed to servicemen during World War II. In the mid-1950's
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At a symposium at Yale University, this was shared:
"When we showed these works, there was a passionate reaction unlike anything I'd ever seen, Ex-G.I.'s would weep as they told me stories about carrying 'Head of Christ' in their wallets, and how it kept them alive."
His last painting, 41 x 46 inches was created in 1964 and donated to a chapel, where it hung for 28 years. Then? Well, the chapel tossed it and it ended up in the local Salvation Army Thrift Center on sale for a hundred bucks.
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By the early 60's, Sallman's Jesus was beginning to show signs of age.
Even in its heyday, "Head of Christ" had been criticized by some for presenting a too-effeminate Jesus. The silken, wavy hair, especially, was singled out for attention.
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As we now all know - unless you are uneducated, backward, and living in a 3rd world country - the idea of a portrait of Jesus depicted the way Warner Sallman painted him - would only result in scorn, ridicule, and rejections. Ironically - may I add - the same way the Bible version of Jesus was scorned, ridiculed and rejected by most people.
I leave you with the following comparison of ART VALUES demonstrated below.
As I said at the very top:
If there is a moral to this story - well - it's for you to figure out.
________________
Warner Sallman painting donated to Salvation Army Thrift Store and sold for ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-dmn.s3.amazonaws.com/public/V74JBZILOVYDJ2KPT3C7XF3JEQ.jpg)
Leonardo da Vinci painting sold for FOUR HUNDRED FIFTY MILLION
Willem de Kooning painting sold for THREE HUNDRED MILLION
Jackson Pollack painting sold for TWO HUNDRED MILLION
Mark Rothko painting sold for ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY SIX MILLION
Jackson Pollack painting sold for ONE HUNDRED FORTY MILLION
David Hockney painting sold for THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS