Edward O'Brien (1910-1975) was an American artist and muralist.
Edward O'Brien (1910-1975) was an American artist and muralist.
Edward O'Brien was born August 11, 1910, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His parents were Irish Catholic. His father was a grocer. O'Brien began going to art galleries and museums at an early age with his grandfather (his father's father). When his grandfather died before he was ten, Edward O'Brien continued to explore art and to draw. At nine, he studied art at the Diocesan Preparatory School. As a teenager, he continued his studies at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, giving up his thoughts of joining the priesthood. By 1931, O'Brien was studying at the Art Institute in Chicago where he met John Rheinhardt, professor of English and Latin at Crane College, who would become his lifelong friend and counsellor. [1]
In the 1930s, Edward O'Brien found work painting murals on public buildings. He also worked as a book illustrator and stained glass designer.
With the arrival of World War II, O'Brien was rejected from all branches of the armed forces because of a pierced eardrum and back injury. Instead, he took a war industry job and continued his drawing and studying at night.
After the war, Edward O'Brien began a period of drifting. His parents had died and his family rejected him for not going into the priesthood, unlike his younger brother. O'Brien roamed the Midwest in search of work and finally returned to Pittsburgh. [2]
In Pittsburgh, Edward O'Brien began a collaboration with sculptor Clarence Courtney and architect Brandon Smith. At this time, he painted his first large mural, together with portraits and religious egg tempura works. In the following years, work took him to Western Pennsylvania and Miami Beach. Work was abundant, but O'Brien felt called to enter a Trappist monastery in Kentucky where he remained in reflection for some time. [3]
At the monastery, Edward O'Brien was inspired by writings of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Thereafter, he left to work as a therapist's assistant at a home for handicapped children in Pittsburgh. He also continued his studies and painting.
In 1959, Edward O'Brien went to Mexico City to study the works of the great muralists there. He was especially influenced by Diego Rivera. During his study of Mexican murals, O'Brien took a guided tour to view Our Lady of Guadalupe on the cloak of Juan Diego at the Basilica of Guadalupe. At the Basilica, Edward O'Brien made a profound connection with Our Lady, a connection that would affect the rest of his life's work. [4]
In 1960, O'Brien arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Here, he reconnected with Margaret Phillips, an old friend, who introduced him to Merle Armitage, an author, critic and Art Director of Look magazine. Through the promotion of Armitage and Phillips, mural commissions began to come to O'Brien. [5]
Edward O'Brien's first commission in New Mexico was for Loretto Academy School for Girls in Santa Fe. "Our Lady of Light" was unveiled September 8, 1963. The work has since been twice moved and currently resides at Los Hermanos Penitentes in La Madera. Armitage wrote an article in the Santa Fe New Mexican celebrating the work. The next year, Armitage and Phillips published a book on O'Brien's life and work: Painter into Artist: The Progress of Edward O'Brien. [6]
O'Brien began his next work at St. Catherine's Indian School in Santa Fe in January 1965. It depicts ten important events in the history of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. He called it "Our Lady of Guadalupe's Love for the Indian Race." It was completed after its formal dedication on June 18, 1966. Though the school closed in 1998, the building where the mural is located is protected as an artistic treasure by the New Mexico government and a citizen's group. [7]
Edward O'Brien was next commissioned to paint a mural depicting stories of appearances of the Holy Mother at the Benedictine Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey in Pecos, New Mexico. [8]
O'Brien's next three years were spent at St. Benedict's Abbey in Benet, Wisconsin. There, he diverged from the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe to make a mural in their Monastery Retreat Dining Room entitled "Christ in Man." While he worked, O'Brien lived among the Abbey's Brothers. It was finished in 1969. [9]
Edward O'Brien's next commission took him to the Catholic Parish of St. Pius V in Chicago, Illinois. Painted on a curved wall, this was to honor the people of Latin America and was entitled "The Mother of the Americas." This work was completed in 1972. [10]
Upon his return to New Mexico, O'Brien met some young American Sikhs who wished to see his mural at St. Benedict's Abbey. They discussed with him the image of "Our Lady of Guadalupe" and how it compared with the feminine principle in Sikh Dharma. After many meetings, O'Brien agreed to create a mural for them and to move into the Sikh ashram in Espanola, New Mexico in the spring. [11]
According to members of the Espanola community, "his desire to learn about the Sikhs and their gurus had no end and his quest for this knowledge rapidly reshaped the meaning of his life." [12] O'Brien, who had spent his mornings reading Psalms, began instead to read from an anthology of Sikh sacred verse. In place of his rosary, he began to wear a coral mala and instead of the medals he had worn around his neck, he began to wear an Adi Shakti (Khanda (Sikh symbol)) pendant of the Sikh faith. [13]
Edward O'Brien was so keen to begin his work that when his move was delayed by two months, he began work on the centerpiece at his home. When he joined the ashram community, he never expected anything special for himself and continued his work with great determination and devotion. When his work drew the attention of Yogi Bhajan the head of the Western Sikh community, the master requested O'Brien also paint a mural for the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India.
In his mural, to either side of the central "Our Lady of Guadalupe," O'Brien depicted the elements, Sikh gurus, and historic episodes of the past and an imagined future. On May 1, 1975, a week after he had finished the work in the ashram, the devoted muralist died of a heart attack at the ashram. [14]
Edward O'Brien's remains were brought to St. Catherine's Indian School in Santa Fe for the funeral which was held in front of the mural he had painted there. The service was a blend of Christian ritual with, Indian and Spanish music, and Sikh elements. O'Brien's brother, Reverend Vincent M. O'Brien celebrated the Mass. In his eulogy, Yogi Bhajan said, "He will be known in the history of man from this time forth. Books will be written on his works. Pilgrimages will be made to see his murals and the power of his faith captured in paint." [15]
In memory of his passing, the Governor of New Mexico, Toney Anaya declared May 5, 1985 Edward O'Brien Day. [16]
José Clemente Orozco was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others. Orozco was the most complex of the Mexican muralists, fond of the theme of human suffering, but less realistic and more fascinated by machines than Rivera. Mostly influenced by Symbolism, he was also a genre painter and lithographer. Between 1922 and 1948, Orozco painted murals in Mexico City, Orizaba, Claremont, California, New York City, Hanover, New Hampshire, Guadalajara, Jalisco, and Jiquilpan, Michoacán. His drawings and paintings are exhibited by the Carrillo Gil Museum in Mexico City, and the Orozco Workshop-Museum in Guadalajara. Orozco was known for being a politically committed artist, and he promoted the political causes of peasants and workers.
The Diocese of Phoenix is a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical territory or diocese in the state of Arizona in the United States. It was established on December 2, 1969 when it was split off from the Diocese of Tucson. Its jurisdiction includes Maricopa, Mohave, Yavapai, and Coconino counties, and also includes the Gila River Indian Reservation in Pinal County. The incumbent Bishop is Thomas Olmsted. The Diocese of Phoenix is a suffragan diocese of the ecclesiastical province of Santa Fe.
Angelico Chavez, O.F.M., was an Hispanic American Friar Minor, priest, historian, author, poet and painter. "Angelico" was his pen name; he also dropped the accent marks from this name.
Gerald Cassidy was an early 20th-century artist, muralist and designer who lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Albert Henry Krehbiel, was the most decorated American painter ever at the French Academy, winning the Prix De Rome, four gold medals and five cash prizes. He was born in Denmark, Iowa and taught, lived and worked for many years in Chicago. His masterpiece is the programme of eleven decorative wall and two ceiling paintings / murals for the Supreme and Appellate Court Rooms in Springfield, Illinois (1907-1911). Although educated as a realist in Paris, which is reflected in his neoclassical mural works, he is most famously known as an American Impressionist. Later in his career, Krehbiel experimented in a more modernist manner.
Mexican Muralism refers to an art project funded by the Mexican government in an attempt to reunify the country under the government post-Mexican Revolution. The project was to allow artists to promote political ideas regarding the social revolution that had just recently ended so that viewers may reflect on how pivotal the revolution was in Mexican history. This was accomplished by way of painting murals, large artworks painted onto the wall itself, containing general social and political messages. Beginning in the 1920s, the muralist project was headed by a group of artists known as "The Big Three" or "The Three Greats". This group was composed of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. From the 1920s to the 1970s, many murals with nationalistic, social and political messages were displayed in many public settings such as chapels, schools, government buildings, and much more. The popularity of the Mexican muralist project started a tradition which continues to this day in Mexico; a tradition that has had a significant impact in other parts of the Americas, including the United States, where it served as inspiration for the Chicano art movement.
Jorge González Camarena was a Mexican painter, muralist and sculptor. He is best known for his mural work, as part of the Mexican muralism movement, although his work is distinct from the main names associated with it. His major works include the mural on the main administration building of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Studies and a mural created for the Universidad de Concepción in Chile. He also created easel works, one of which, La Patria, was well known in Mexico as it was used on the cover of free textbooks from the 1960s into the 1970s. Recognitions for his work include the Premio Nacional de Arte, membership in the Academia de Artes and the Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, grade Commendatore from the Italian government.
Alma López is a Mexican-born Queer Chicana artist. Her art often portrays historical and cultural Mexican figures, such as the Virgin of Guadalupe and La Llorona, filtered through a radical Chicana feminist lesbian lens. Her art work is meant to empower women and indigenous Mexicans by the reappropriation of symbols of Mexica history when women played a more prominent role. The medium of digital art allows her to mix different elements from Catholicism and juxtapose it to indigenous art, women, and issues such as rape, gender violence, sexual marginalization and racism. This juxtaposition allows her to explore the representation of women and indigenous Mexicans and their histories that have been lost or fragmented since colonization. Her work is often seen as controversial. Currently, she is a lecturer at the University of California Los Angeles in the Department of Chicana/o Studies.
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Nanibah "Nani" Chacon is a Diné and Chicana painter, muralist, and art educator. Her work has been installed at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, the ISEA International Arts and Technology Symposium, Old Town Lansing, and in the "Que Chola" Exhibition at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, among other venues.
Bernadette Vigil is an American artist and illustrator whose work has been exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and abroad. She has produced permanent public artworks in the form of fresco murals for the cities of Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has been commissioned to create religious frescoes in churches in New Mexico, and has been called a "master of the art of buon fresco" in the Santos Tradition. She has authored a book on Toltec spirituality, Mastery of Awareness: Living the Agreements. In 2002 it was published in Spanish as El Dominio de la Conciencia, and in 2005 it was published in German as Das Geheimnis der vier Versprechen.
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