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Twelve Reproductions From The Living Madonnas In Art Series. [Calendar for the year 1943.]

[Washington, D.C.], Presented by Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, Howard University, [1942]. 13 leaves (disbound), 11.25” x 8.5”. CONDITION: Very good, except for loss to paper surface at upper margin of front cover and a few other leaves, text and images unaffected.

A very scarce calendar with illustrations after photographs showing Howard University students reenacting the annunciation, immaculate conception, and nativity scenes as depicted in Italian Renaissance paintings.

The recreations are after works by Correggio, Bellini, Raphael Santi, Murillo, Fra Angelico, and Andrea del Sarto, among others, and were staged as part of the “Worship Through the Arts” series—called “Madonnas in Art with Ave Marias in Music”—that took place at the Rankin Chapel and was organized and directed by Dean Howard Thurman.  The music, art, home economics, and drama and costume design departments collaborated on “live reenactments of nativity scene paintings by Italian master artists” (The Dig). The text notes that all subjects were “chosen from the undergraduate student body of the University,” and “Fifteen ‘paintings’ have been presented during the three years in which the ‘Madonnas in Art with Ave Marias in Music’ have become an established part of the ministry at Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel.” The calendar was published just a year before Thurman left Howard to help establish the first racially-integrated church in the country, the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, in San Francisco.

OCLC lists just one holding, at the University of Dayton.

REFERENCES: Shapiro, Seth. “If These Walls Could Talk: A Black History Month Tour of Howard’s Famous Places (Part 2: Historic Campus Buildings)” at Howard University’s The Dig online.

Item #9172

Price: $1,250.00

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