miscellany

I visited this church again this evening and recorded the information on the print. It's a print published by Concordia Publishing House in 1965. The artist's signature is R. Hook. The title of the work is Head of Christ. Upon Googling for more information, I found it for sale on half a dozen sites in various sizes and on various media. There is even a site that sells a yellow version and a "suntanned" version. I found no blue versions like the one at the church for sale nor did I find any images of it in blue. I think the blue is part of what I find so striking about this work. The full color version is shown to the left and is for sale here from Concordia Publishing House. Here is a small biographical blurb about the artist from their site:

Richard Hook (1914-1975) was a well established illustrator for such magazines as The Saturday Evening Post and Colliers before Lillian Brune, the first art director of CPH, "discovered" him on a visit while working with his wife, Francis, also a talented artist in her own right. He created major religious works for many publishers over the years, including Concordia Publishing House.

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Posted at 10:05 p.m. on May 2, 2006
I saw this painting in Centenary United Methodist Church in Greensboro, NC, this evening and it is truly the most striking piece of portraiture I've ever seen. I must look at it again and note the artist. It's a shame I only had my camera-phone with me, for the detail of the painting is simply beautiful. I was hoping the artist's name would show in this image, but the resolution is too low. I think it was H. Roth or H. Ross, but Googling for various permutations of H Ross Roth Jesus painting turned up nothing useful. Still, I'm certainly happy that I had my camera-phone to even acquire a low-quality image of it. It's simply striking... This image falls very short of beginning to do it justice.